


It

by FreyaFenris



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Amnesia, Betaed, Blood and Gore, Dark Derek, Dubious Consent, F/M, Forced Prostitution, Human Experimentation, Hurt Stiles, M/M, Manipulative Peter, Master/Slave, Panic Attacks, Power Imbalance, Sensory Deprivation, Slave Stiles Stilinski, Slavery, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Starvation, Violence, Were society, Were-Creatures, at the beginning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-01
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-05-30 15:22:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 33,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6429883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyaFenris/pseuds/FreyaFenris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>And he doesn't say it but wonders when there will be nothing of him left.</i> </p><p>-</p><p>In a word where humans are property to the ruling class of Weres, Stiles is a spark - something that can be used to boost the power of an alpha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is something that kept on bugging me for some time now. It's mostly self serving thing where I try to find how much I can hurt Stiles without breaking him. It's dark, it's twisted, it's wrong, so be prepared. This is also OOC for Derek at the start, who is a little sweet bunny and needs to be protected in canon. I marked it as a Dark Derek but he changes so we might yet see his kinder side as we progress with the story. Basically this is a version were Kate’s betray affected him even more then in the canon and he has a deep mistrust of humans.  
>    
>  I know where I would like to go with the story, but in difference from anything else I've written in my life (and not published because why) it's not planned from start to finish. I also experiment here using different tense then usual. As you might have already guessed I'm not a native speaker so expect mistakes as the journey to learning a new language is long and painful one.  
>    
>  This story is inspired by fic [The Silent Fury](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4581585) by [andavs](http://archiveofourown.org/users/andavs/pseuds/andavs), [rosepetals42](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rosepetals42/pseuds/rosepetals42) because I found the idea of stealing someone's memories so completely heartbreaking I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I really recommend you to read it, you won't regret it. (Also Stiles is so badass in there and the art is sooo good!)  
>    
>  With the biggest of thanks for beta to [secretforkeeps](http://secretforkeeps.tumblr.com/) whom saved this story from being overrun with mistakes and errors and proved once more that betas are true heroes of every fandom. 

Stiles wakes up in the middle of woods. The last thing he remembers is being herded along with other slaves from a bullpen and injected with something. Now he knows that the something had to be a fastacting sleeper and judging from the position of the sun and how the chill of the air only just started to settle in his bones once more, it was quickly wearing off. He couldn’t be here for too long. On the other hand he had a vague feeling of being moved and dozing in and out of sleep, so maybe they just relocated him here and finally stopped drugging after some time. Maybe it wasn’t just a few hours he is missing, but a few days.

  
He shakes his head, there is no point in wondering about things he can’t change. A few more missing days won’t make a difference anyway.

 

His bad leg is throbbing painfully when he tries to stand up, but he grits his teeth and moves in spite of it. Maybe if he is lucky he will find something he could use as a crutch. The forest is quiet around him, no other people in sight. But one look to the sky tells him there is still some time before the sunset, and he knows that in few hours time he will be longing for the illusion of solidarity and silence.

 

He touches his neck and the collar is no longer there as he suspected it wouldn’t be. Some other, more naive slaves, could be misled to believe that somehow they have gotten away from their masters, that finally they have a chance of being free. Stiles got enough from overhearing conversations of his keepers as well as from connecting some stray facts collected over the years, to deduce that he was taking part in The Hunt. At what he thinks is twenty two, Stiles is fast approaching meeting his serviceability’s end as it is and is more of a used good, but if it wasn’t for the recent developments he is sure they would be able to squeeze a few years yet out of him.

  
It couldn’t be helped though. He is at the end of the line, but he would be damned if he didn’t at least try to make himself less of a prey, even if his death in a very near future was given. Even after a whole life of getting beaten down, Stiles is a fighter.

 

Maybe he could take one of the bastards with him as well. With a little help, one that meant something or had an encounter with Stiles before.

 

He smiles at the thought.

 

The forest seems to go on forever and there is no way of telling where he was. That’s probably the point. If he and the others don’t know where they are going, they will scatter in an irregular pattern - some coming in the direction of where the Weres will start from, some going the other way, some hiding and hoping their scent won’t be spotted right away, some staying frozen in fright where they were left. More exciting for the other part, he guesses.

 

There is really no point in wondering what direction could be best for him, so he doesn’t. He picks a direction on a whim and moves, dragging his bad leg slightly behind him and just going forward and forward still. It’s quite a nice surprise when no more then twenty meters away he finds a fallen branch long enough to be of use and strong enough to support some of his weight. It’s an even better surprise when it turns out that at least one deity still likes him a bit, or maybe took pity, when he spots a stream just as the sun dies over the horizon and the whole forest is suddenly bathed in darkness.

 

He drinks in a big gulps, greedily sating his thirst. Once he is done, he strains his ears, trying to guess if someone was tracking him already or if he still had a few hours to live. He doesn’t hear anything. Absolutely nothing, not even the usual chatter of animals; even the trees are still, no blowing wind or movement of leaves. The whole forest is still like it’s holding its breath, watching how the situation will unfold. There is a howl then, low and barely at the edge of his hearing, but without a doubt Stiles knows now what it means.

 

The Hunt has begun.

 

He puts some mud on his face, neck and other places he thinks the scent had to be the most clear, hoping that it will at least buy him some time, and he stands quickly. Too quickly as the throbbing pain announces seconds later. No matter, he is used to it by now.

 

Stiles limps in the direction of a higher ground. He might be more visible there, but it will also mean that no one from the other side will be able to take him by surprise. At least he will see the end coming, he thinks. Once there, carefully masked as well as he could with leaves and small branches, with his back to the tree, he waits.

 

It can’t be more than an hour later - to Stiles it feels like an eternity - when he hears a high pitched scream and then silence once more. It’s still some distance away, but it’s enough for his breath to come in hard puffs and his heart to go into overdrive. They are gaining on him and now he must be sounding like a rabbit. Perfect game to be hunted and crushed under the strength of their jaws and claws.

  
He hears a rustle to the left and it is only thanks to quickly falling to the side, that the giant shape that pounces on him misses. Its body hits the tree and it sneers and growls clearly looking forward to easier prey.

  
Stiles is suddenly giddy. “Yeah, that’s right, asshole. You want me?! You’ll have to work for it!” he calls out loudly and some more reasonable part of his mind tells him it’s unwise. That he will just make the creature more angry or maybe even attract more predators. But the other part says screw it, he is a dead man walking anyway, so why should he care?

  
The big branch he used earlier as a crutch has fallen alongside with him and he pretends to scramble away as the beast is getting ready to jump on him again. He grabs it and swings it wide, catching his opponent in the snout. It howls in pain and Stiles uses the moment to get back to his feet and make some room between them, hoping to make his stand with the next tree behind his back. It turns out to be mistake. Even in pain the Were is still so set on ending Stiles, that it doesn’t take the predicted moment to deal with its own injury. Its claws catch Stiles’s back, white pain coloring his vision. He goes down again.

 

It rolls him onto his back and he barely registers more pain when the newly opened wounds meet the uneven ground. The Were’s saliva hits his face as it steps onto his chest and snarls at him. It’s making itself ready to finish what no doubt in their mind took too much time. Stiles can practically feel the giant fangs tearing into him and ripping out his throat. He blindly reaches for some weapon he can use, anything, but all he feels is soft grass and leaves, and he knows-

 

He knows it’s the end.

 

Another growl vibrates down to his bones and it takes his brain a second to register that it’s not coming from the beast on top of him. The Were’s head snaps to the side, but it’s too late and weight is taken off of Stiles’s chest as his opponent and the newcomer tumble to the side, already engaged in combat.

 

Their claws and teeth clash in a fight of dominance, and Stiles finally sees that the new creature is a Werewolf, a beta at that judging from the glowing blue eyes, as opposed to the omega Werepanther that was trying to end him earlier. The other has no chance, not with a beta, but it doesn’t stop it from trying to claim its kill. In the end it doesn’t matter, Stiles isn’t stupid enough to stay and see who turns up on top.

 

He ignores the pain and gets back up. He isn’t even trying to be quiet anymore, he just want to put as much distance as possible between the Weres and himself. Even if the beta won, as he surely will, there is no doubt in Stile’s mind what he will do with him. Their kind celebrated those with the most kills and surely that was what he was trying to gain here in the first place, disturbing the other.

 

There is a sound of pain, a snap as if a bone is breaking, and even more whimpers behind him, and Stiles knows that the fight is over quicker than it started. He knows that the winner is already tracking him down, but is not ready to find glowing blue eyes calmly watching him from a distance when he turns back, its head jerking a little up and down as it’s scenting the air. He stops trying to flee, there was no outrunning a wolf, not even if his leg was uninjured, but he holds his good friend of a branch in front of him and dares the fucker to come near.

 

“You know what I found earlier?” he asks, making his voice as strong as he could, hoping that the thrumming of his heart pumped with pure adrenaline would mask the lie in his words. “A whole patch of wolfsbane. Nice little flowers, those ones. Decided to use them to decorate my staff here by rubbing it in. You don’t mind, do you?”

 

The Were starts to circle him then, and it could be the trick of the light, but Stiles swears that he can see mirth in it’s eyes. It clearly didn’t buy Stiles’s lie, but it keeps some distance between them, walking back and forth, occasionally stepping closer and jumping away before Stiles has a chance to make his swing meet flesh. After a few minutes of that, he finally realized what the other was trying to do. He was wearing him down and playing with him, like one would play with a mouse before feeding it to a snake.

 

Stiles sees red. He might be a slave but he is not a plaything, not any longer! He refuses to spend his last second of this life treated that way.

 

“What the hell are you waiting for?!” he yells. “Are you afraid of me?! Is that what it is?! Come one, you coward! COME ON!”

 

And the Werewolf does.

 

Stiles swings his weapon, but the other is too quick and skilled for him. It avoids the branch without any problem, and knocks it from his arms, but not before its claws dig into Stiles’s face and run all the way from his forehead to the left cheek. After that, everything is a blur of red and movement. A big black paw hits him in the middle and makes him him fall several feet away. His head thuds into a tree with a crack, but the pain doesn’t register. His whole body feels numb, and Stiles thinks that if this is death, then maybe it isn’t so bad after all. He looks up and sees the Were advancing on him, set to finish his job.

 

The last thing Stiles sees is a blue glow.

  
After that, there is only darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This time have some Stiles and Peter with Derek on the side.

Consciousness comes and goes in flares of sound and pain. He tries to hold on to that, the only symptom of being alive, but it slips from him, shifty like dry sand. It takes some time and when he finally is able to face the world of the living he wakes in an unfamiliar place. The first thought in his mind is that it’s starting to become a habit of his.

 

His head is killing him. Now that he is awake, his back and leg also want to show him just how unhappy they are with how he is treating them. But it’s all still better than a strange numbness around his eye. He tries to feel it with his fingers, but his hands are heavy like lead and a moment later he is distracted by thirst. His lips are chapped and he would kill for a glass of water. He wonders if someone maybe left some in his near vacancy. There are sounds around him too, but none of them make more sense than the blurs of color around him that took up singing. He closes his eyes once more and tries taking big breaths, hoping to soothe his brain. Minutes creep by and ever so slowly the world starts to make more sense.

 

“-e problem?” asks a smooth voice somewhere before him. Stiles can’t find enough energy to open his eye once more and see who it is.

 

“Sir, I realize that what you are proposing is technically legal,” answers another person, their tone of voice more urgent. He is stressed, Stiles decides. He got good at judging people’s emotions based on their voices. Call it a survival instinct. “But you need to understand that even if such, it’s still not something that we practice here. It’s highly-”

 

“So it’s better if I just killed him there and then.” The first one interrupts.

 

“Well, yes!”

 

“But I didn’t,” continues the first, like he never was interrupted. “So that creates a problem with what to do with him now, seeing as The Hunt is over. As far as I know, your association prides themselves in not possessing human stock, isn't that right? The poster said something about it. How it shows your strength, when you don’t need even one,” he is starting to sound almost bored as he says that. In the background Stiles can hear shifting and realizes that he must have hit a nerve. “It’s my understanding also that it’s frowned upon killing human slaves. Without at least the other part being at fault and all that.”

 

“I-” the man starts but no other words follow.

 

“So why don’t you just give him to me. The kill would be rightfully mine after all. I’ll get rid of the problem that was created here for you,” the voice is cheerful now.

 

There is a slight pause in the conversation. Then the other responses confirming what was clear for anyone bothering to look, “Yes, sir, of course. If you will follow me then.”

 

The sound of footsteps moving away announces their departure.

 

***

 

It takes Stiles a longer moment but finally his only working eye is not assaulted immediately upon opening by the faint streams of light. (That part-timed as torturers, he is sure.) His head still feels like it’s about to split open anytime, but at least now he can make more sense of what he is seeing.

 

The dawn is nearing. Orange and blue crashes over horizon in one hideous pattern, but it’s good. It means that The Hunt really is over and they can’t send him back to that gods forsaken forest again. Stiles hates forests. It isn’t clear to him why exactly. The memory of the event that caused the feeling is long gone by now, either taken or forgotten. The emotion stayed though, strong as ever.

 

He releases a long breath in relief. Even as the sharp pain in his ribs reminds him that he didn’t come out unscathed from the event, he is glad. Against all odds, he is still alive. Stashed in a cage that is barely big enough for him to sit straight, but alive. Everything else doesn’t matter, not even that the cramped space won't even allow him to lay his limbs in any position that would bring some ease to the tense muscles.

 

His cage is put in the corner of a large square, away from the prying eyes of anyone who might wander about at this time of the day. There is a strange mound in front of him, but much closer to the road than to the building Stiles was currently near. It looks out of place there, with all uneven corners, heights, and volumes, when everything else is so pretentiously symmetrical and sharp around it. He can’t see it better, the shadows still prevalent, but he has a strange feeling about it.

 

Stiles is torn from his thoughts by the doors snapping open. Two men come out of the building near to where he is being kept.

 

“I want to stress how important it is that the slave never tells anyone about The Sacred Hunt,” says the taller and thinner one. Stiles recognizes the voice from before. He assumes that his companion is the beta werewolf he met in the forest.

 

He is not as tall as the other one, but can’t be called short by any means. He looks like the embodiment of silent straight not strained by age. His muscles are still tight under a thin shirt, even if he must be pushing something that in human years would look like forty. He catches Stiles’s gaze on him easily and smiles in a way that makes Stiles's blood run cold. The man scares him and he must be Stiles's new owner.

 

He is proven right a moment later when the man responds.

 

“Don’t worry. I can be _very_ persuasive,” he says with a cheeky grin and Stiles realizes that his situation didn’t improve much from the night before.

 

It’s the beta that finally breaks the eye contact between them, even if it shouldn’t be and goes against everything Stiles has been taught. “So what’s his name?” he asks.

 

“I’m not sure, sir. But I’m positive that like all the others it will answer to whatever you wish it to be called.”

 

The beta huffs annoyed. “Well, what do his papers say it is then, Marcel?”

 

The man, Marcel, rustles through papers that must be Stiles’s own. He grows more and more frustrated by the second when he doesn’t find an answers to this particular question and is no doubt only seeing Stiles’s serial number everywhere instead. The two stand there for a while, but it doesn’t occur to any of them to actually ask the one that would know - Stiles.

 

His name was the most precious thing to him and he clung to it in his mind. Even if not every owner called him by it, even if some of them tried to take it away, he would rather lose a limb than lose his name. The times he himself forgot it, when he was nameless and only a pack of flesh to be used and disposed of, without a reason and voice of his own, were the most terrifying in his life and he wouldn’t- he _couldn’t_ repeat them. It terrifies him especially, when he knows that it isn’t the first one he had. When the ones before it were lost forever, just like the first few years of his life.

 

The beta finally rolls his eyes and snaps, “Forget it. And do something about his eye. It’s unpleasant to look at,” he says like it wasn’t something of his making. Something the extent of which Stiles would only see later. And maybe even something that Stiles would have to deal with for the rest of his pitiful life.

 

Stiles decides that the beta is a dick.

 

“I will add it to the list.”

 

The Were comes closer to his cage and Stiles’s heart skips when he notices a key in his hand. All previous thoughts forgotten, he instinctively curls into himself and backs away from the opening, but he can’t go far in the little space.

 

“Mr. Hale, I advise that you reconsider and let us handle the transfer! In the traditional way,” Marcel adds, but the beta doesn’t pay any attention to him. He opens the cage and crouches before the opening, directly before cowering Stiles.

 

“And who’s the coward now, huh?” he says, for the first time directing his words at Stiles.

 

And just like that he triggers the stupid part of Stiles that he had worked so hard on destroying and never quite managed. The part that is in blind disregard for his survival and one that he bled for on numerous occasion. It’s unbent and unbroken by the years of servitude, and one day it would probably be the reason for his death.

 

Stiles lifts his chin and looks the Were in the eyes in a challenge, his heart pounding loudly for all to hear. But instead of ripping his throat out the man smiles, his eyes gleaming electric blue. “There he is,” he says and extends his hand to help Stiles get out of his prison. Stiles takes it.

 

He scrambles out quickly and stands on quivering legs, but his attention is instantly taken by the same mound he was looking at earlier. This time he has a better view of it. Change of the light and perspective shows him exactly what he was missing before.

 

Now he sees that it’s not an architectural construction, not even a natural hill. At this moment he sees that the mound is made of human bodies: bruised and bloodied, lying on top of each other, their gazes looking unseeing into the blue sky, all of them dead, sacrificed during The Hunt.

 

He takes a step back, he needs to- He stumbles and is stabilized again by the Were at his side.

 

“There, there, little spark,” the werewolf says and Stiles head snaps back to him in an instant. He looks at his new owner and sees in his eyes that he knows exactly what Stiles is.

 

He can’t breathe, the world is closing on him, squeezing the air out of his lungs. His blood is pounding in his ears and he feels dizzy and weak. He rips his arm away from the beta and takes a few steps, just to fall to his knees. Someone is saying something, but the words fall on deft ears.

 

He can’t… He CAN’T! She promised, she promised no one would ever- She _promised_ to him.

 

Stiles throws up.

 

***

 

He loses time again, caught up in his own brain. Everything after is a bit of a haze too, but he refuses to think about connotations of what the Were said to him. The man is not an alpha and that’s all that matters. He is _not_ an alpha.

 

It seems people who were in charge of The Hunt weren’t exactly counting on survivors. They clean the wounds on his back as much as they can with only basic human medical kit, give him a shot of something, put a rag over his eye and declare him ready to travel, but not before they tattoo his new owner’s id number onto his neck along with the transaction’s serial. The woman putting in the ink huffs, seeing the long list already there, going from behind his ear almost to his collar. Yeah, it wasn’t Stiles’s idea to change owners so many times either, lady, so a little compassion would be welcome. He briefly wonders if it was ever a problem when the list got so long that it merged with the id of the slave, tattooed just over their heart, but he decided that it probably wasn’t. Besides the fact that one would be so used up that they were no longer desired for any job, their price would be so low that they wouldn’t even be worth wasting ink on.

 

His new owner picks him up, finishing his business with a big self satisfied smile. He doesn’t speak to Stiles anymore, maybe weary of another waste of time. It doesn’t matter much, because even if it's only his eyes that rest on Stiles, all that he wants to do is to crawl back to his cage and be forgotten by everyone, even if that meant being in close proximity to the dead bodies. He can’t though. So when his master gesticulates for his servant to follow he does without hesitation. Maybe if he is good and does everything the beta wants he would at least consider not messing Stiles up too badly. He can only hope.

 

As he passes the pile of bodies he wonders if perhaps the better fate for him would be lying there with them. Put in an unmarked grave and forgotten for all eternity by gods and living alike... But there is nothing he can do now. There is also the annoying voice in his head that says that he wouldn’t join them even given the choice. He already got it and he chose living, and he would do it as long as he was able to.

 

Stiles hurries after his owner.

 

It’s not uncommon for one to want to take their purchase home right away. Usually though the custom calls for slaves to be stashed in a van later that day when everything is over. They are are then to be delivered to the buyer’s address without delay. It’s more a problem of how to move them than anything else. Most owners wouldn’t be caught dead sitting in the same place as the servant and putting someone in the trunk was just in a poor taste. The beta doesn’t seem to care about tradition though. When Stiles stops, unsure before the car, the man just tells him to get into the back and takes the driver seat himself. It feels strange to be in such a reversed position and Stiles spends the whole trip even more tense than he usually would.

 

The Were - Mr. Hale, Stiles remembers - doesn’t say anything the whole trip. He doesn’t threaten, make promises, or show Stiles his place. It makes him wonder what his new job will be, but he can guess, even if he prefers not to.

 

There is something about the man’s surname too. Whenever Stiles repeats it inside of his head it feels like an echo of a memory. Like somewhere, sometime, he heard it before. Like it’s important.

 

Stiles frowns trying to decode it’s meaning and looks up to the man. He can’t place him, he himself doesn’t feel familiar, so it’s not him he is missing. But- There is something about the tilt of his jaw, of the way his eyes creased when he smiled…

 

A family member. He met them before. The memory must’ve been taken away since, leaving only crumbs in its wake. Enough to start to wonder, but not nearly enough to be sure.

 

It’s not a hard decision to keep his mouth shut. Whoever it was either will tell the man himself or they won’t. Maybe they will pretend to have never met Stiles. It was not a slave's choice to make and he couldn’t be blamed for not taking action. The same way furniture couldn't be blamed if it got broken, if someone walked into it.

 

He didn’t think it would be possible but after a while, the rocking of the car and soft humming of the engine is too much. He finds himself dozing in and out of a light nap, worries stashed at the back of his head, forgotten for now. It’s a bad idea, as it turns out. He finally wakes to the sound of doors being shut. His previous manageable headache is now making his eye water when he looks into the light. What's worse is that while he slept, the day finally started with all its vengeance and now there aren't any shadows left. Whatever they gave him in the shot must be wearing off too, because the pain in his whole body makes him want to whine.

 

Even so Stiles stays silent and scurries out of the car, trying not to fall behind. His light jog is clumsy and pitiful to watch, but they didn’t give him anything to use for extra support, so they can’t get mad for the slow pace. Well alright, they could, but there was absolutely nothing Stiles could do about it, aside from trying not to actively antagonize whomever was in charge of him by making it look like he is clumsy on purpose.

 

He didn’t see it before, but the place they arrived at is huge and screams of old money, even if it had seen better times. The lawn is unkempt, bushes are losing whatever shape they were trimmed to resemble and- Stiles has to be wrong but he could almost swear that the foundations looked like they were touched by smoke and fire.

 

Still, they must be able to afford a servant that didn’t exactly come for free. But maybe Mr. Hale is one of those eccentrics. The ones that like to shock the general public, maybe he’s the ‘fight the power’ kind, and this is how he shows it. It doesn’t mean much to him if he is. If an owner so chooses to show him off to his social circle, he could take whatever they decided to come up with. But it’s good to know what to expect before it happens. Gods know what he could avoid if he just knew about it beforehand.

 

The werewolf opens the front doors and goes in, not giving Stiles more time to wonder. He follows quickly this time, mentally reminding himself to find the servants entrance for future use. Who knows what his new owners would do if one of their guests saw a slave entering the same doors they used. _He_ knows what some of his old ones did, and he decides to find it sooner rather then later.

 

The inside of the place is not much better. Dark and unwelcoming doesn’t make a good first impression. When he was little he once snuck upon his owner and caught a fragment of a movie she was watching. It was taking place in a similar house, the floorboards even creaked in the same way when stepped on. The resemblance is uncanny, really. The memory of the movie is one that he would part with without any regret. He hopes that the aura of the house isn't an omen and the fate that awaited him within would be different from the one the characters of the mentioned movie got.

 

“Derek!” his owner calls in a human voice, but there is a strange vibration in the air around Stiles and he knows that the beta must have used his Were gifts too. The power is still present around them when he turns back to Stiles and adds in a hushed voice, “Behave or an eye won’t be the last thing you lose.” And then he is moving away, leaving Stiles wide open to whatever threat is coming his way.

 

With the corner of his eye Stiles catches a movement at the top on the stairs. He almost lets out a trill of hysterical laughter when his brain fully registers what he is seeing. He understands now why the beta would want a spark even if he couldn’t use them. A beta couldn’t. But he belongs to a pack and the alpha who is standing at the top of the stairs with glowing red eyes certainly could.

 

Stiles doesn’t realize that he is stepping back until a firm hand stops him. Strong fingers dig into his shoulder with a clear message of ‘stay there’.

 

“What is it, Peter?” the alpha asks, stepping down, his eyes not once leaving Stiles’s. He tries to look away, to break the connection, but he can’t. Some part of him recognizes that it shouldn’t be taken as challenge. That the other would look and see a prey mesmerized by a predator it knew it had no chance to beat or run from.

 

The alpha is at least ten years younger than the beta, with a rough face, dark hair and stubble, and bushy eyebrows. He looks half shifted already, but what strikes Stiles the most about him is how he’s holding himself - hunched but still emanating strength in every sharp moment. It’s like even the air around him is vibrating with barely contained power.

 

“A spark, dear nephew. Exactly what we agreed upon not even a week ago,” the beta at his side explains, voice full of glee. It's his fingers that betray him as they dig into the mangled tissue of Stiles’s shoulder causing even more pain. It helps though, he is finally able to tear his gaze away and concentrate on breathing.

 

The alpha looks at him from head to toes and he feels judged and lacking. “We didn’t agree on purchasing something which was already half dead.”

 

The beta turns to him. He watches like he only just realized the state of Stiles, clothed in his rags and with bruises and wounds covering most of his visible skin. He must be smelling too, body odor mixing with the coppery stench of blood. Maybe they can even smell the bitter aftertaste of pain - on some level it surrounded him for as long as he can remember - others complained about it before. Yes, he must be looking like a reanimated corpse. He also feels like it.

 

The beta finally shrugs. “Nonsense!” he denies, speaking to his pack mate again. “He is in his prime. A little on the thin side, sure, but a bit of fat and he will serve the pack for a few years still. Deaton will fix him without a doubt.”

 

The alpha grimaces, but looks like at the mention of the name he is out of arguments. “How much,” he finally asks and Stiles freezes. A sharp glance of the beta in his direction tells him to be silent.

 

“My treat. See it as an early birthday gift.” The beta - _Peter, his name is Peter,_ he reminds himself - says. If it wasn’t for the thin line the man is walking between Stiles’s life or death, he would think him hilarious, seeing that he came at no cost at all. As it is, he doesn’t say anything and hopes that the alpha never finds out the truth. That he never decides that Stiles is not even worth the cost of maintenance. It was bad being cheap. It’s much worse being worth absolutely nothing.

 

“How soon can it be used?”

 

Stiles’s heart stops and then goes into overdrive. He isn’t ready. They didn’t give him even a chance to take care of his wounds properly. Why do they do this? Why would anyone do this? He hoped he escaped that fate, he hoped that it was over… He hated them. He hated them with all his might.

 

“I don’t know. Why don’t we call Deaton and find out? I’m actually curious how much we can take without-”

 

All Stiles sees is a blur of motion and he finds himself shoved against the nearest wall, his feet barely touching the ground and a clawed hand closing around his throat making it difficult to breathe. With his only good eye, he sees the crazed red inches away from his face. He instinctively reaches to the hand holding him in place.

 

“I can smell it on you,” the alpha hisses, his fangs out. Stiles has no idea what he's talking about. He tries to say so much, but what comes out is only a small whimper. “Given a chance you would kill us all, wouldn’t you?” The Were squeezes Stile’s throat even more and pushes him higher. Stiles’s legs are no longer touching the ground and he can’t breathe. _He can’t breathe._ He claws at the hand holding him, but he doesn’t achieve anything.

 

“Don’t break him, before we get a chance to use him, Derek…” the beta says somewhere in the background, but all Stiles can see is red.

 

He feels his grip on the reality slipping slowly. His ears are ringing, his whole world is drawing in the beat of his frantic heart, his lungs are burning, and there are dark spots in front of his seeing eye. Everything starts to fade as the alpha holds him. _I’m going to die_ , is the last clear thought in his mind and he struggles little harder. He tries to scratch, pry the claws away from his throat, but his arms feel like they are made out of cotton and the alpha’s grip doesn’t waver.

 

“Derek,” comes from behind the fog that’s clouding his mind. “Derek!” the beta all but screams and finally Stiles is free and falling hard to the floor. He is gasping and coughing, but _free_ and able to breathe again. The air in his lungs never felt better than it does in that moment. It takes a while for the blurriness to go away, but when it does he sees in his parietal vision boots of the man who almost killed him without any reason. He tries to crawl away, or at least make himself a smaller target.

 

The beta stands between them then. Stiles doesn’t know if it’s because of a sentiment or because of yet getting from Stiles what he wanted, but he is grateful either way. The pair exchanges a few words, but their meaning is lost to Stiles. He feels faint and somehow wet - the wounds on his back must have opened.

 

Stiles then makes the error of looking up. On the alpha’s face he can see only disgust and anger and he knows that the man wishes he completed his work. He curls up tighter into himself and awaits his fate. He feels like throwing up again.

 

Finally the alpha is moving away, not even sparing Stiles one more glance.

 

Stiles is glad.

 

After a second the beta sighs and comments, “That went surprisingly well.”


	3. Chapter 3

The beta gives him five whole minutes before he continues as if nothing had happened. He snaps his fingers at the slave to follow and Stiles does so without hesitation. His breath is still half sufficient and his legs quiver, ready to give out under him any second, but he needs to get away. And the Were extended to him his protection, reluctant as he was about it. Stiles isn't going to make him regret it.

 

He gets a tour of the house. Kind of. He gets pointed to where the most important stuff is, but without any further comment as to what they expect Stiles to do with it. As far as he can see there are no other servants in the house, but he could be wrong. Maybe they rented one, like ones he used to see from time to time with his previous owners. Hales certainly had money for it.

 

They stop at the small door which Peter pushes open, and points Stiles inside. It opens to a short and narrow corridor connected to stairs leading down. He grimaces slightly at the sight. He hates stairs. He watches the beta questioningly, but the other looks bored and finally done with him.

 

“At the bottom you will find a bed and a bathroom. Finishing the servants wing just never seemed like a priority, so this will have to do. The things you will find downstairs are there for your use while you’re here. I -  _ and _ Derek - expect you to stay there while you aren't needed or doing whatever you slaves are supposed to do.” He looks at Stiles and frowns, recalling something. “Remember where the kitchen is?”

 

Stiles nods.

 

“Good. You can take whatever you want, but if I were you I would avoid Derek’s meat. He can be very particular about it.”

 

Stiles only nods again. He doesn’t need much, they would hardly know he’s there.

 

Peter sighs. “Well then, down you go. I would advise staying put, at least for some time. He will get used to you. Eventually. I will get you myself once Deaton is here.”

 

He pushes Stiles into the corridor and shuts the door swiftly behind him. Stiles barely avoids crashing down but steadies himself with a hand on a wall. The stairs don’t have a railing, so if he takes one wrong step he will sure as hell fall to his death. He moves, his leg already unhappy with what he has to do. 

 

Stiles only manages to make one painful step down when the entrance opens again and Peter pokes his head in.

 

“What’s your name again?” he shocks Stiles by asking and all the slave can do is look at the man with wide brown eye. It’s a trap. Of course it’s a trap to see if he remembers. No one cares what his- “Oh, don’t get me that look. I know you have one and if you tell me what it is, it takes away the trouble to name you with something punny enough. Also Deaton won’t have it if we just call you ‘slave’ or ‘it’.”

 

Stiles doesn’t know who this Deaton is, but is starting to get a feeling he doesn’t want to, seeing the respect both Weres hold for him. It never is good to know the top guy. He clearly didn’t move up and stay there by being the kindest and most thoughtful of all.

 

“Fine. I’ll trade you. You tell me your name and I’ll let you keep it this time. Doesn’t happen much, does it?” No, it didn’t. “Going once, going-”

 

“Stiles,” he says, his voice rough and small from disuse but Peter hears him.

 

Something like surprise marks the beta’s face, but he molds his expression into a natural one in the time it takes Stiles to blink. “Stiles?” he rolls it on his tongue, as if he is tasting the sound. “That's a strange name. Quite unique too, if I’m not mistaken?” It seems like a rhetorical question, but he watches his new acquisition closely, waiting for an answer.

 

Stiles bows his head in confirmation and it seems to please the Were.

 

Peter smiles, something sinister shining in his eyes. “It suits you,” he says, and with that he's gone.

 

***

 

Stiles is not quite ready for what awaits him at the bottom of the stairs.

 

It’s a little room. Nothing fancy by Weres’ standards of course, but Stiles falls a little bit in love with it. It has a single bed, not just a mat or a blanket on the floor and a small dresser with a change of clothes already inside. He doesn’t put them on right away, not wanting to dirty it just by touching, but it’s a near thing. He's bit disappointed when he doesn’t spot anything warmer then some shirts and pants. He shouldn't be, really. Most Weres run hot, so it’s not surprising that they forget sometimes that humans don’t. There is nothing much aside from that, just a single chair and some boxes stashed under a wall. The room must have been used for storage before, he concludes. He doesn't wonder about it for long - the next second Stiles spots something that makes the room special in it's own right.

 

A window.

 

It’s a little dirty, smudged, and out of his reach when he stands directly underneath it, but if he sits just right on the bed he can make out an outline of the outside world.

 

A view like that is not something he takes for granted anymore. Not after spending so much time locked up, wishing for just one more glance.

 

He would be more glad for it, if the light breaking through layers of dirt and dust didn’t hurt his eyes so badly right now.

 

But all in all, he likes it. He really does. It’s almost worth having to walk down. Almost. It’s not at all worth the trip up and he grimaces just thinking about it.

 

Stiles balances on one foot, pushes his trousers down, and sits on the only chair in the room. He stretches his right leg before him as far as he can, and just watches it spasm for a moment.  _ I overexercised it _ , he thinks and snorts. Like it wasn't an exertion just to use it for more than a five minutes at a slow pace. It's bad though. Pain radiates from his knee up to his midsection and the flesh looks even worse now than it did right after getting the injury. At least then he couldn't see it with all the blood. The web of scars is fading from pink to white and soon it won’t be so visible, but it's the pain that bugs him. It's almost as bad now as it was when-

 

He doesn’t want to think about it.

 

Still, he half wishes to go back to the lab. At least there he was so out of it for most of the time he didn’t even notice the pain. Sometimes, when he was more aware, they gave him painkillers too. He is still a great fan of painkillers.

 

But no, it isn’t worth what they did to him, pain is something he can deal with. Being a lab rat is not.

 

Watching his leg closer he notices some new scratches and one particularly ugly gash that will turn into another part of the design no doubt. He sighs. He needs to take care of it and other stuff, especially his back, if he doesn’t want to get sick again. He doesn’t think his body can deal with a slight fever right now, much less with a full blown infection. He needs to do it fast too, if the way his makeshift shirt clinging to his body, glued there with dried blood, is anything to go by.

 

There is a door to the left of the bed and Stiles assumes that’s the bathroom Peter mentioned earlier. He grabs a pair of clean clothes on his way and enters the room.

 

It’s small and crowded. It barely has enough space for a shower, a toilet, and a sink, but it’s clean and bright. Another positive surprise? He no longer has to share with cockroaches and the occasional rat. Having a mirror to actually see what he is doing is another plus and comes in handy in situations like this.

 

He thinks he is ready to see how he is actually looking now, but no. It's even worse than what he assumed and no wonder the alpha didn’t want him. He  _ does  _ look half-dead.

 

A third of his face is covered with makeshift bandages - they were gray to begin with but now they look brown in places where wounds reopened and dried again. His only visible eye is bloodshot and dull. Stiles recognizes the look without a problem. He had seen it on other slaves all his life, when the light was still on, but there wasn’t anyone home anymore. He tries to change his expression - smile, frown, look in wonder - but it all feels wrong and fake. It's like a stranger is pulling strings attached to him and he is no more than a puppet. It looks even worse than the original blankness. He let's himself stop trying and the pretend emotions fall from his face, washed away like a stain. He wonders if maybe they feel so wrong is because he no longer possesses them at all.

 

It annoys him that he doesn’t want to see what's under the rag anymore, just how much damage he sustained. Stiles never was the prettiest one, but his clients always liked his face well enough, and some part of him doesn't want to let that go. To let go of his only feature that was worth anything at all.

 

He looks away from the mirror in shame.

 

When his gaze goes back there is determination in his posture. Before he can change his mind, he starts to rip the tatters off with quick hands and rough movement. Peeling off the material makes the skin around his eye start to hurt. He lets out a gasp of relief. The pain grounds him and whispers a promises that it wasn’t all gone. That it won't be all dead when he finally sees.

 

The promise dies in an instant when the last bit of cover falls and Stiles sees himself fully for the first time after The Hunt.

 

The whole left side of his face is puffy and black and blue. Dried blood is everywhere, some fresh starting to leak too. There are four deep gashes going along the side of his face with the second one from his nose the deepest and most ragged. His eye is completely swollen shut. He doesn’t have to guess, there is no doubt in his mind that he won’t be able to use it anymore. There was no going back from a wound like that, even with whoever this Deaton that's supposed to  _ fix _ him is.

 

He looks at himself and just breathes.

 

Stiles grabs bandages and throws them under the shower. He sneers at his image in the mirror and comes closer to it. He puts both of his hands on the injured side of his face - one up, one down - and pulls, trying to force his lids to open. There is new blood flowing, but he doesn’t care. He needs to see it.

 

Finally he pries it open and sees-

 

His eye is still there, but it’s a mess of red and white. His iris is no longer visible, it’s overshadowed with white. He tries to look with it, but can’t. Even if it’s not gone it’s useless now.

 

He backs away from the sink and mirror. From the rags covered in his blood that decorated shower’s floor. His right foot catches something and he goes down. He scrambles away still, until his back is against the door, until he can’t go any further.

 

Then there is pain, more prominent than before. It’s in his back, it’s in his leg, it’s in his head. It makes him dizzy, his brain hazy and clouded. He can’t do anything to make it stop… 

 

He can never do anything to make it stop.

 

Even if Stiles feels like crying, there are no tears on his cheeks.

 

He has no more tears left. He hasn’t for years.

 

He sits there until Peter comes to find him to meet the mysterious Deaton. The man sees the mess but doesn’t say anything. He just grabs Stiles’s arm -  _ covered in red, red, red _ \- and drags him all the way upstairs. He doesn’t talk to him, not even to chide him for not washing and changing. For being a disgrace and not something you want to show to your guest. It's almost like he pities Stiles.

 

It's almost like he pities himself for choosing him.

  
  


***

  
  


The mystery of Deaton doesn’t stay a mystery for long. Not quite a witch, not quite a human, not quite a spark, not quite a druid. He is an emissary - one of the lucky bastards found handy enough that the general public turned a blind eye on their not-quite-pure descendant. Stiles doesn’t know if he likes him or not. The man has a strange aura around him and he prods Stiles’s wounds and bruises even if, contrary to Weres, he must know that he causes pain. The fog clouding his mind makes it hard to focus and so he leaves the decision for later.

 

It all could be worse, Stiles guesses, at least the alpha didn’t deem his slave’s check up vital enough to show up.

 

Stiles sits at the cold metal table, completely naked if not for a sheet spread over his thighs. It’s more for everybody else's rather then Stiles’s comfort and sense of modesty. He himself got used to being and seeing other people naked in various situations and it no longer fazes him. It seems the most awkward part is when he acknowledges person’s gaze upon his body when in a non-sexual situation.

 

He tries to avoid awkward. It leads to too many bad things. 

 

_ Splash, splash, splash. _

 

His blood falls and falls unstopped…

 

Stiles looks around the room in wonder.

 

The equipment and interior makes it like a healing chambers, but for what his owner would need a healing chamber for in his own house is beyond him. Weres got hospitals to take care of the most serious stuff, with their shiny machines and the best medicine on market. Not that they needed it much with their super fast regeneration and extreme durability, but still they had it  _ just in case _ . In contrast, of course, to slaves who most commonly only got to get a visit form a local caregiver, when in dire need. The person who showed up was more often than not an unequipped, uneducated, underpaid fellow, whom once upon a time had a dream to help those most in need. Boy, they were in for a surprise once back on earth.

 

It really is a healing chamber, he decides after a moment. Small and cramped, a bit out of the way located at the side of the house, entrance to it in a corridor that isn’t used anymore, but a healing chamber nonetheless. Its simple existence makes Stiles hear warning bells. A Were needing additional help with healing doesn't bode well to a naturally weaker human.

 

“And you say you bought him from where, Peter?” the man asks over Stiles’s shoulder, while inspecting information contained in the naked skin. Stiles almost can see wheels turning inside of his head as he processes it all. Some of it is well known after all, like the number of the whorehouse he used to work at. Funny enough, that number is clearest of all to see, not damaged by scar tissue or by the new blood dripping from his face.

 

“A place. Not important,” Peter replies evasively.

 

The emissary looks at him. He is not going to just go with it, Stiles realizes. He wishes that they continued the conversation once they gave him his clothes back though. The chill of the air and metal table is sucking away any warmth he has and it takes a lot of effort not to shiver in the contact with it. It seems even colder than the medical equipment Deaton is using from time to time. 

 

“It is important, if I am to know if he was contaminated.” Contaminated… Like a source to be used that needs to be checked first for impurity. That needs to be freed of everything unwanted, when the most unwanted part is he himself. But maybe it's exactly like that. “A rival pack will stop at-”

 

“He’s not.” Deaton just raises one eyebrow. “Why not just ask him?” He moves around the table, grabs Stiles’s face and asks, “Have you been in conspiracy to kill us all, Stiles?”

 

Stiles looks at him, lost, not comprehending the question at first. 

 

Kill...? 

 

When he does his pulse goes into an overdrive in instant. If they think that- It would be the end. They will kill him, no additional questions asked. But not before taking away from him all the information they wanted, by all means deemed necessary. And anything else they might want along with it… 

 

_ No, no, they can’t. _

 

He shakes his head. It’s hard with the beta’s fingers and emissary’s gaze keeping him in place.

 

“See? His heart starts to sound like a rabbit’s at the mere thought. He would sooner get a stroke then fulfill his evil destiny.” He finally lets Stiles go and steps away self-satisfied, but the echo of his touch lingers. Stiles watches him go. His hand is red now just like Stiles's. ...just like Stiles's. “The new breed of slaves is like that. Meek to their very core.”

 

Deaton’s eyes finally leave him and fully concentrate on the beta Were. On Mr. Peter Hale, Stiles's new owner. No. Not the owner. Not the owner at all. 

 

“Careful now. It’s common enough knowledge that a spark can mask their own heartbeat and lie to a Were. You should have learned your lesson by now, Peter. You do not underestimate your opponent, not even the most valuable looking one.”

 

Something changes in the air after he says that. Stiles doesn’t know what but all his senses yell at him to go running and take cover. His muscles tense and are ready to take him away any moment.

 

“It wasn't  _ my  _ lesson to learn,” the Were sneers and looks like he is ready to attack. It doesn’t seem to faze Deaton one bit.

 

“No, but you payed a heavy price either way.”

 

And like that the tension is broken and everything goes back to normal. Stiles has no idea what just happened, but he knows that sooner or later he will learn. He just wishes that it won’t be the hard way. 

 

Maybe he should just tell them he will serve them well or as well as he could. They wouldn't believe, but at least he will know he tried. At least he will have nothing to blame himself for when he lies in the pool of his own blood, his body and mind broken. 

 

He opens his mouth but no sound comes. He closes it in shame and looks away.

 

In the corner of his good eye he sees Deaton watching him intently.

 

“I don’t know which establishment you got him from, but whatever you paid you didn’t quite make a bargain here. I would stay clear of there in the future too,” the man says after a while, nothing of his posture betraying any emotions. Stiles would be offended if his words weren’t true. “He has three cracked ribs and wounds on his back that require medication. Some infection is already setting in.” He adds and his fingers touch the place he no doubt is talking about. 

 

Stiles can’t stop a gasp, pain flaring behind his eyes blinding him for a moment. He decides that no, he doesn’t like this Deaton guy  _ at all _ . 

 

“He also has a mild concussion that needs to be observed closely. I will write you the symptoms to look for later. If he shows any of them, call me immediately." He stops talking for a moment. "There is nothing I can do about the eye,” he adds directly to Stiles. 

 

He nods, startled at the sudden change of attention. He already knows it and it’s bizarre that his tantrum is addressed at all. It also feels strange to hear a touch of compassion from anyone above his station. 

 

“Other than that, I’m mostly concerned with his weight. If it stays at this level he won’t be of any use to you. At least not for long.”

 

“Yes, we already talked about it. He knows where the kitchen is and is big enough to take care of himself.” Peter snorts at his own humor.

 

“I’m afraid that won’t do. At least not quite yet.” He reaches into his bag and takes out a jar of what Stiles doesn’t want to but recognizes without a problem. “I believe you’re familiar with food supplements for humans and their use?” Stiles bends his head in agreement. It isn’t fair. He was just getting used to the idea of real food.  There is also no way to gain weight with that thing, but they probably knew already. “Good. I expect you to use it twice a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening.”

 

He puts the thing near Stiles so it can lay there and mock him further and takes out small vials full of… stuff.

 

“We should take a closer look at his leg, too,” Deaton says watching it spasm. Stiles tries to relax it and not show just how bad it really is. He fears that it might be a deciding factor in ruling if he was worth keeping after all.

 

Peter looks at it too, unimpressed. “Will it make him unable to perform as a spark?”

 

“No, but it can cause him-”

 

“Then leave it be. He was dealing with it before, he can do it now,” Peter interrupts.

 

Deaton looks like he wants to disagree, but finally caves, deciding it’s a battle to be fought later on. Probably when Stiles proves his worth enought that they would really want to keep him.

 

It's a few minutes later when the emissary is in the middle of explaining to a confused Stiles - and the beta who looks like he doesn’t listen to a word that is said - how to use each and every kind of medicine Stiles needs, when doors fall open the reveal his new alpha.

 

He looks at Stiles long enough to make it clear that the disgust he felt earlier is not a fleeting emotion, before his gaze turns to the other men. They straighten their backs and even though it’s Peter that looks more tense, it’s Deaton the other two are watching. 

 

As for Stiles. he is feeling more exposed and and powerless than before. His heart is doing this thing where is starts to run on full speed, trips and does it all over again. He tries to calm it down. He knows he must be sounding like a prey right now, but it doesn’t listen. He concentrates then on not moving. At least in this way not drawing attention to himself more then he already has.

 

“How soon can it be used?” the alpha asks without any pleasantries.

 

“ _ It  _ is a he, Derek, and  _ he _ has a name,” Deaton says. Stiles looks at him in sort of misguided awe. No one talks to an alpha like that. Especially not someone who is on the social totem pole just because they're merely tolerated there. The Were is not amused, but he doesn’t say anything either. “To answer to your question, that depends on how often you plan on damaging him instead of letting him heal.” Again Stiles is stunned at the forwardness, but bit by bit he realizes just how dangerous that game is to  _ him _ . Deaton would be gone soon enough, but Stiles? He will be left with an alpha whose dominance just got challenged. He closes his eye and prays that the man closes his big mouth before it’s too late.

 

“I didn't  _ damage _ it,” his owner sneers.

 

_ Not as much as he deserved _ , Stiles hears unspoken and wonders how the emissary knew. It couldn’t be easy to distinguished one injury from another.

 

“The bruise on his neck tells a different story, alpha,” the man says. Stiles doesn't wonder anymore. It’s finally clear to him that Deaton has complete disregard for Stiles’s well-being, even if he crafts pretty illusions. “Add it to the injuries he sustained earlier and you will find that he is in no shape to be of use to you or anyone right now. I'm afraid any plans concerning him must be postponed until further notice.”

 

Stiles whips his head up so fast that he swears he can hear bones cracking. Did the man just postponed his- He doesn’t dare to look at the alpha to see what his expression must be right now. Not wanting to know if it was the exact moment that the man decides that he is not worth his time and needs to be get rid of.

 

“How long?” Peter ask in a tense silence.

 

“A month. Maybe two. It’s hard to say right now.” 

 

A month. Maybe even two. Stiles can’t believe it. If he is left to live he will have a full month. Maybe even two. 

 

“I need to test his blood for contamination before that either way.” Deaton continues like he didn’t just completely change Stiles’s world. “I can send it to you or drop it off with the next visit, whichever you prefer.” He adds the illusion of a choice to the conversation, something to placate the Weres and their need for dominance, but it feels more like a mockery to Stiles then anything else.

 

The alpha seems to think so too. “You’re saying that I’m to put up with its presence without even-” he asks, completely omitting the later part.

 

_ “His _ presence. And yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.” He pauses, raises his chin and looks the alpha directly in the eyes. He is challenging him again. Maybe he isn't sane. “Unless you plan on killing the human?” It isn’t a rhetorical question.

 

There is a tense moment when no one in the room knows the answer. The emissary stands tall and sure. The beta stands somewhere in the shadows, shifting his weight, like he can’t quite yet decide whom to support. The alpha is standing completely still. He shifts his gaze to the slave. Before Stiles can look down, he sees something in those unnaturally green eyes as the man's gaze goes from Stiles's bloodied side to his seeing eye. He doesn’t know what it is, but that’s it. That’s the moment, and whatever was to be decided, it will be decided right now. Somehow Stiles finds it freeing.

 

“No,” the alpha finally says. It sounds like it's a surprise even to him.

 

Deaton nods and doesn’t look like he expected any other outcome. “Good,” he says simply. “Like I said to Peter, I don’t understand why you didn’t purchase one of the trained stock. But if this was your choice, then I suppose you will have to stick with it.”

 

The alpha glares at Peter, who only smiles sheepishly in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit finally hits the fan in the next chapter. Stay tuned!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soo… The shit doesn’t hit the fan in this chapter. But I didn’t exactly lie! The truth is that this chapter is part of another bigger chapter I have written (12k cheaper is a bit too much in my opinion), and in it there is a scene I was taking about before - one to start the Real Action ™. Setting things up took just longer then expected, but it should be worth it. If you don’t like slow chapters you’re encouraged to skip it, you won’t miss that much. The next chapter with more action will be up soon (no for real soon - it’s getting betaed right now).
> 
> Thanks so much to all of you who leave comments and kudos - it means a lot and is there best motivation there is. This chapter goes to you, guys :)
> 
> And now have a slice of a Stiles.

Getting used to a new place is never easy but this time is even harder. This time he knows what they want him for. This time he knows how they will hurt him.

 

Whatever Deaton gave him before, it speeds his recovery time. It takes care of his wounds much better than Stiles’s methods ever did. But it also makes the fog that clouded his mind go away, and with it destroys the silly delusion he’s been sporting. He won’t be given any time to recover. Let alone months... It’s ridiculous to think so. His purpose in Hale’s house is not to be sweeping the floors, and nobody would be mad enough to pretend otherwise.

 

Stiles tries to take his mind away from that thought. To think positive, focus on being sufficiently healed and tolerably fed. It doesn’t work. The only thing that does seem to help and to make all his worries go away, if only for a little while, is keeping busy. He works and concentrates on every detail of the action he's doing. On the ache in his back and twitch of his leg’s muscles. He thinks about that and sometimes he  finds peace.

 

He knows why Peter spared his life and decided to take him in. He _knows_. But there is a certain, almost childish, need to deny it and pretend that’s not the only reason Stiles is wanted. That the whole pack isn't weak enough to need to rely on a power of a mere human, and thus is a safe to belong to. That he can deliver upon his need to please without getting hurt in the process.  If the charade means that Stiles is to be something else, whatever that is, until the time he is not, so be it.

 

The only clue about what his additional chores are is from the beta, and ‘do whatever you slaves are supposed to do’ is not much to go on. Supposed to do from where and when? Those times he barely remembers anymore, when he was with his first owner? When the only thing expected of him was entertaining her kid? Or the time he worked in a factory, conveyor belts going so fast it made his whole word spin? But maybe do what you did in the whorehouse? Or what was expected of you in the lab?

 

The possibilities are endless.

 

But it feels wrong to do nothing at all.

 

Seeing that they seem not to have any full-time servants, Stiles decides that the smartest thing to is to act as a household staff. Well, maybe not the smartest. He didn’t work long as one due to various reasons. The main one was always his inability to focus and natural clumsiness. Be that as it may, Stiles wouldn't be able to do a very good job even if he was the best help on the planet. He is only one person and the house is enormous, there is no way he can to do everything that needs to be done. It will have to do though. There is no other choice.

 

And so he takes up cleaning every surface of the house, starting from the main hall and moving deeper. Sometimes Peter is watching him lazily and adds some pointers. Other times Stiles is left alone with his thoughts. He prefers when Peter is there.

 

Stiles is told off the first few times when he tries to access the upper floor. Peter doesn’t say it plainly, but it’s his alpha decision to make that part of the house no-slave-land. _It’s for the best_ , Stiles thinks when finally noticing the pattern in the beta’s behavior. His leg is grateful, for once not having to support his weight on additional trips. Going every night down and every morning up from the room he is stashed in is hard enough.

 

He tries to do his best either way, respecting their boundaries. After a while, he notices that what he does or doesn’t do don’t seem to matter much. But it doesn't stop him from trying.

 

The alpha, he looks at all the things Stiles does with such a level of disgust Stiles is surprised the man isn't throwing up. As for Peter, it looks like he's not even living in the house. The first few days after Stiles arrival the beta is a constant presence. That's probably just to make sure Stiles is not mauled to death because of alpha’s short temper. After three days he starts to disappear for longer periods of time. After five he is only there when Stiles cooks. Eight days in and he’s coming back only to - so it seems to Stiles - annoy his alpha.

 

Stiles is not allowed out of the house. That, Peter made clear enough back on the first day. It’s not something that he hadn’t experienced before, and he deals with it his usual way. He finds a place he can hide in with a great (or any) view. For now, it’s a window in one of the unused rooms at the side of the house. It's hidden away - when looking from the doors - with a big wardrobe, that doesn’t quite fit with the rest of spartan interior. Sometimes he has a silly thought how must he look from the outside sitting there. Does he look like a maiden wishing for her hero to come? It could land him in trouble, lesser things did, true. But what he himself gets from it is that the windowsill is low and big enough that he can sit on it quite comfortably. The room is also sunny for the most of the day - he feels warm just sitting in his spot. The few moments he allows himself to spend there, he basks in the sun rays, soaking the heat into his skin and bones, forgetting about the permanent piercing cold he otherwise feels.

 

It’s in times like those that he forgets the red lines decorating his body, his unseeing eye that slowly loses swelling, the hunger he knows so well, it’s like a best friend, the angry Were who assured him he won’t see Stiles dead quite yet, but did everything to make it seem otherwise… In those moments he forgets why he was brought to the house and what happened to him before. In those moments, he is free.

 

Stiles of course should have suspected that it wouldn’t last long.

 

***

 

Sleep deserts Stiles around four o’clock each morning. It’s not something he ever actively tried to cultivate in himself. It could be a pain in the ass those nights he fought with insomnia or went to bed late because his chores went on for too long. But it’s something that was taught to him when he was a kid. It meant that he always woke up along with the other servants and before the rest of the house stirred. It gave them plenty of time to prepare for the day.

 

The problem is that Stiles mustn’t prepare anything anymore. He’s not to be out of his room before six at least, when the Weres woke and feel more comfortable with him roaming about.

 

Even if he's more used to washing and dressing still half awake, Stiles allows himself to laze a portion of the morning away in the bed, blinking at the still mostly dark sky seen through his little dirty window. It’s peaceful this way, the world is quiet and slow, and it seems anything is possible.

 

Stiles can’t stand it.

 

This kind of stagnation is not something he’d ever experienced before. He needs to move. To do something. When he doesn’t, he has a chance to think, to wonder about his fate, and that brings realizations. Those thoughts are never a good thing. He needs to push them away, but the only thing that works is making himself busy and he isn't allowed to do that. He’s told that to please he needs to do nothing and stay put for the time being. It goes against everything he’s ever been taught, but it’s an order. And unfortunately Stiles needs to feel that he’s doing what is expected of him. That he’s being good and wanted. Even if what they make him do contradicts his own beliefs.

 

There is no denying it. Work is his only escape. But there is no work in his little room. There is no escape.

 

Just like there was no escape in his last cell.

 

Stiles sit on the bed and removes the blanket, so it no longer covers his body and shields him from the cold that permanently hides in the stone walls of the house. The chill at once sweeps away from his bones any heat he had built up for himself during the night. Stiles shivers, but doesn’t pull the warm material on again. The quicker his body adapts, the sooner it’ll begin to numb to the feeling.

 

His bare feet make contact with the floor and he tries to stand. Only to go down again with a distressed grunt as his legs give out under him. The warmth of the bed and carefully adjusted position, while he slept, helped with the constant ache of his right leg. It made it easier to forget that it’s not as functional as it was three years ago. Stiles huffs and tries to stand up again, this time going slowly and more aware of his own limitations. His muscles still cramp, but this time he puts most of his weight on the left leg and balances with arms outstretched, until he is sure he can maintain the upright position.

 

Neither Peter, Deaton, nor the Alpha Hale thought it would be handy for him to have something to help him walk. Peter had seen him use a staff before, Deaton was an emissary and should realize. Stiles doesn’t think the alpha cares enough for him to wonder. But maybe neither of them give it to him because his main purpose is _not_ to move. Not to try and run away. And his current state works for his owners.

 

 _As if I would even try,_ Stiles thinks, shaking his head in disbelief. He goes back to the memory of what happened to those crazy enough to think salvation waited away from their master’s side.

 

Still, he wasn’t _expressly_ prohibited from possessing one and so he could try and find something that would help. Still, if it took off only a fraction of the pressure it would be worth stretching his luck. The house is big enough to get lost in, but with the speed Stiles is moving, leaning against walls from time to time, he does almost nothing to take care of maintaining the place. And the lack of a head start in the morning doesn’t help this matter either.

 

The problem hides in not being able to go outside. There he could just grab a stick or a fallen branch and make do with it. But for now Stiles is stuck inside, surrounded by things that are not for him to use. He can hardly take his owner’s possession and just go with it, expecting for others to just accept that this is something he needs. Not without getting permission first. And what he got from living inside of the Hale House is that he’s not going to get that without difficulty. He could ask Peter. Probably. But Stiles gets a feeling that the man would want something back for this favor. He isn’t sure he wants to give it. Whatever the ‘it’ is. The beta has this strange and unnerving air around him, and maybe it’s the memory of the Hunt and what followed, or his own survival instincts kicking in, but Stiles is quite sure that owing Peter even more is not a good idea. Sooner or later he will have to pay the man back with interest, and he hopes that day comes with a delay.

 

Stiles decides to keep his eyes open, when he’s finally allowed upstairs. Who knows, maybe for once in his life he will get lucky.

 

He walks the room back and forth, trying to prepare his body for the day of work. When Stiles thinks he can move more than a six steps without crashing down or having to stop, he grabs a change of clothes and moves to the bathroom. He needs to make himself more presentable for his owners and wouldn't hurt to take care of his wounds.

 

The water under his shower is warm. It’s a really pleasant surprise he found the second day. With it he doesn’t have an excuse not to try and keep himself clean with the limited resources of hygiene products donated to him. The Weres’ sense of smell is much keener than a human’s, so if he was to march around unwashed, they would take it as  a deliberate opposing and as an offense. Stiles is long beyond opposing. And so he washes as much as he can and takes care not to dirty his new clothes or wear out his old ones. Who knows when he will get a spare set. He’s not sure yet how to use the washing machine he found in the laundry room, but he will get there.

 

Having a mirror helps to see the damage done to his body and in applying the tonics Deaton gave him. He was too out of it to listen closely as the man explained everything but he came in contact with some of them in the past. He knows well enough what those ones are for intimately. Others’ use he guesses. The fact that he’s more or less healed now proves his speculations were right. Or he just was lucky and wasn’t given something he could use to damage the property of the Hale family that his body is. But, yeah, gift horse and all that.

 

The Deaton guy is really good at what he does. Aside from the professionals at the lab, he’s much better than any caregiver who previously took care of Stiles’s injuries. Of course they hadn’t got so many capabilities with shit knowledge and shit medication alike, but Stiles gives credit when the credit is due. The cloudiness of his thoughts leaves first, then the infection recedes and wounds close to angry red lines. Stiles doesn’t think Weres are aware that under the label ‘healing assistant’ painkillers hide, but he takes them anyway. He runs through them quicker than recommended, but at least they will never be found and taken away. Maybe this way no one will punish him for having them. Taking them feels great too, for the first time in months he doesn’t feel like crawling out of his own skin.

 

Deaton also gives the Hales herbs to make Stiles placid, if they ever feel like he misbehaves. What probably wasn’t his goal, was for Peter’s inattention to let it be pushed into Stiles’s hands, along with healing balms, pills, and food supplements, as he was dismissed. Stiles doesn’t know what to do with the herbs, so he decides to store them in his room until the Weres have use for it. Sometimes he’s tempted to just take it out and numb his body and mind alike. It’s not unpleasant, that state. It’s like he rises above every one of his problems and they no longer weigh him down, drowning him in sorrow. But if Stiles does that, the Werewolves can do anything to him. Anything they want. If he takes them he won't be able to fight back, even just a little bit.

 

Stiles is no more ready now to give up control over his mind so easily than he ever was. His body? Yes. But not his mind. Never his mind…

 

There’s some gashes on his back that still trickle blood and throb from time to time, but the episodes of flaring pain are getting less and less common. At least they no longer ooze the smelly fluid. It’s hard to reach some of them, but with the help of his new mirror, somehow he manages. His ribs are far less agreeable to treatment. Stiles bandages them tight, even though he needs to grit his teeth while doing so. Deaton didn’t tell him to do this, which dumbfounded Stiles for a while. But then again maybe he did. Maybe it was while the wall before him seemed so much more interesting than words that felt as if they were poking his brain. Either way, this is something he saw other slaves do and what he himself did before too, even if it hampered his breathing. And so he does it again.

 

Stiles admires his handiwork in the mirror.

 

With a thin layer of skin stretched tightly over bones that stuck out too much, no fat in sight, very little muscle tissue, half of his face and chest covered in bandages, Stiles looks like a poverty-stricken mummy wannabe. It’s not exactly a good look on him. It’s also why he tries to avoid looking at himself longer than absolutely necessary.

 

After the grand error he made before, Stiles doesn’t look at what hides under the rags covering his face anymore in front of the mirror. He fears shaming his owner’s name with his dismal behavior again. He knows it’s healing slowly. The return of sensation and itching usually is a good sign of it, but he still doesn’t want to see it ever again. He doesn’t want others to see it even more. And so he puts on the healing salves outside of the bathroom and away from any reflective surfaces, with only his touch as a guide. It might scar worse this way, but he isn't concerned with it too much. He hardly can make himself look worse.

 

Stiles finishes up his morning routine and heads back to the room. He carefully puts down the shirt he’s been using as night clothes under a pillow. He sits down again on the bed and tries to entertain his busy mind but two things keep coming to the front of it over and over again.

 

Firstly: he is hungry.

 

“I believe you’re familiar with food supplements for humans and their use?” Deaton more assumed than asked during the check up and Stiles agreed.

 

Yes, Stiles is familiar with them. But he isn’t so sure his owners or Deaton are though. He’s also not sure how they expect him to replenish energy with them and be of any use to what they wanted him for.

 

Supplements are a shitty but cheap way to feed your slaves. Even if they have all the things that one needs not to die - or at least not as fast as if they weren’t fed at all - that doesn’t mean that taking them is any fun. They barely meet the base of his hunger - and he didn’t need much to eat to start with. People who opted to use them on their servants usually did it for one of two reasons: to give severe punishment but make sure the human didn’t die (like a fragile looking but with strength of a bull woman who owned Stiles before the whorehouse did), or to save some money (like was the way in auction houses he ended up from time to time did). Stiles had no idea why Deaton would choose it, when he did everything else to make Stiles healthier, and when the Hales certainly had money to spare, but Peter agreed and that was it.

 

Either way, Stiles wishes he could take his supplements down to the room with him. They might not be much, might not be a real food, but they _do_ keep the worst of the hunger at bay. He can’t eat them until he is allowed out, they are in the kitchen and it’s where they will remain, he was told. Judging from the position of the sun, it will be some time still until Stiles can go and join them there.

 

Hunger is an enemy he fought for most of his life. But it’s also a problem that’s resolved with ease.

 

A long time ago he learned, that if you drink a glass of water and then lay on your belly, for about two hours the cramps will leave you alone. It’s accompanied though with a feeling of sloshing inside, and while not painful it’s still uncomfortable. There are of course other, much better ways to fight hunger, though he knows not how to use them now. The best, of course, is squirreling away bits of a previous meal, since he was already allowed to eat them. With it, once the food is denied, there's still something left to eat. But it’s hard. To make himself stop finishing every last bit and hide some of it for later, when even the whole meal can't put a dent in the hunger he feels every waking hour. But the supplements are almost too little to make it through the day, without succumbing to a fainting spell. There is no chance to save any of them for later.

 

A sharp cramp makes Stiles grimace.

 

No, focusing on the lack of food, isn't the best tactic to deny its existence. It’s possibly the worst tactic of them all.

 

Stiles lets his thoughts flow again. Where was he? Ah, yes. The other thing.

 

Secondly: he’s being suffocated by silence.

 

Apart from the two Weres and Deaton, Stiles hasn’t seen a single living soul anywhere near the house. Yes, the property is far from the main road and Stiles is not yet allowed outside, but he would have thought that there would be at least some visitors. Maybe the rest of the pack at least, coming to spend time with their alpha. But there is no one. And there is stillness in the air, as if a whole world is holding its breath. Some days, when Peter isn’t there and no one speaks or even spends time in the same room as him, Stiles feels like a forgotten relic - not wanted, but kept for safekeeping until it can be used again.

 

The peace and quiet is getting to him. It makes him feel like he’s gone deaf. The only time he experienced something like this was when he and about four hundred others were rented to work in a factory and it went bust. After months of sleeping and working in the noise, with the buzz a constant presence every hour of the day, they turned off every machine inside at once. Not one of the four hundred humans working on the line said a word. They were all too dazed, their ears were ringing. It wasn’t for another 15 minutes, when handlers started shouting orders and herding them away from their stations and back into the blinding light of the outside world, where the transport waited, Stiles realized he hadn’t permanently lost his hearing.

 

He never got used to silence again. With other slaves or owners there was always some sort of chatter or movement of tired feet going about their chores, so he didn’t need to. But with the Hales, everything is still, like the house itself is sleeping, but not quite. Like it’s undead. It feels like something bad is supposed to happen any minute. It keeps Stiles constantly looking over his shoulder expecting some unexplained evil to lurk there.

 

So yes, silence is a big problem for him.

 

It’s not a pleasant surprise when he finds it’s something that’s always there in the Hale house, no matter what Stiles does or who’s with him. It hangs heavily over the house, creeps into every corner and nook, until there is not a single place he can escape. It makes him feel like he entered a ghost dominion, full of untold stories and unheard whispers no one is any longer paying attention to. It calls to Stiles full of longing in ways that scare him and yet make him want to respond. It sneaks into the places he thought long dead and lurks there, waiting to take over his body and mind. He almost lets it. Almost, but not quite, lets himself yield to the force that promises to take away his problems.

 

_It would be so easy._

 

His little room starts to feel too much like his cell in the lab lately.

 

Stiles quickly stands up and decides it’s time he made not only himself but also his room, something his owner wouldn’t be ashamed of.

 

He sweeps the floor, washes the window. He makes the bed and pushes it in a better position so he can see better the outside world while he’s having a lying down. He doesn’t touch the boxes of stored items, in case there is something personal in them though. He makes noise. A lot of it. It’s deliberate and he knows it could bring down the Weres and the punishment that followed their presence like a shadow. He doesn’t care. If he doesn’t break the silence, it’s going to break his mind and he would much sooner choose a few new bruises, than losing himself again.

 

Sweat starts to drip down his back when he hears it. A creak of the doors leading down being opened. He stops in a mid step with his arm still outstretched to get most of the dust from over the dresser, his whole body on alert.

 

Maybe it was a bad idea after all.

 

Few seconds go by. Then a minute. Then three and four. No one comes down, there is no other sound in the house but the one he himself makes. Stiles is finally able to move. When he look up the stairs the doors are indeed cracked open, but as he suspected no one is standing in them.

 

He exhales heavily and moves up the stairs, safeguarding his clumsy steps with his palms outstretched before him.

 

Back to work it is.

 

***

 

When Stiles makes his way upstairs, Peter is nowhere to be seen. Usually he likes to have an early tea, while chatting at Stiles as he sips it and watches the slave prepare him food, from time to time giving pointers to how he prefers it. Stiles concludes that Peter must have left for the day already. Or he didn’t come back to the house the night before. It’s hard to say which it is with him. Sometimes the beta slips in like he never left, the other times he lets everyone know that he was gone and now requires attention.

 

With Peter gone, it means that the door was opened by the alpha. Stiles’s pulse quickens at the mere thought and he pushes it away. He doesn’t need a panic attack to prove that he’s worth even less they they already assumed he is. He doesn’t want to push his luck. Not when they’re already mad their original plans are postponed until further notice. The alpha is nowhere in sight, just like Peter, but Stiles knows he’s not far. He might not be a Were, but he didn’t survive for so long being oblivious to his surroundings. While the Weres’ absence feels like one, there are hairs on the back of Stiles’s neck that tells him to tread carefully.

 

He’s being watched.

 

He always feels watched these days. It’s not safe to act freely. Not at this point. Possibly not ever while in the possession of Hales. Not if he isn’t safe inside of his little room, or hidden away behind the big wardrobe being really really quiet. Almost daring not to breathe.

 

There are invisible eyes on him every minute of every hour. Looking, waiting for him to put one foot beyond the line, while Stiles doesn’t even know where the line starts or where it ends. He keeps busy, trying to pretend not to notice them looking. To show that he is good enough and worth to be where he is. To posses new nice clothes, even though they’re never enough to keep him warm, and a nice room, even though climbing up and down is a pure torture some days.

 

The gaze doesn’t waver ever. Stiles is never good enough.

 

It makes him feel small and weak. Untrustworthy - even though he can’t harm them in any way and is too smart to try, when he know this is a fight he could never win. Unwanted - even though he didn’t ask to come here to be used, to be sneered at and shoved out of the way when one word would make him obey and move himself.

 

The alpha hates him and Stiles wonders how long it will take until the next episode of his fury, when Stiles is already treading at the edge of it. He wonders if he will survive again or maybe this time Peter will just decide to watch and not intervene. Maybe he won’t even be there to stop the crushing power of the alpha, just as he is not anywhere near now.

 

Stiles runs the scenario over and over in his head.

 

There are images already half-formed behind his eyelids when he lays awake in his new bed every night. He can almost feel the taste of his blood in the air. Can almost hear his last ragged breaths as he is gently lulled to sleep, nodding off and he...

 

They give him time to heal, but he doesn’t know how much is left. He is sure though, that it won’t be the two months the emissary recommended. In all it feels like sitting on a time bomb that could explode any second. During those sleepless nights in a dark corner of his mind, Stiles hears a voice saying that it would be better if they just got it over with. He hates himself for thinking those thoughts in the morning.

 

But that was then and this is now, and with the gaze again upon him he knows that the horror is not far away. It will soon be done, he would be taken and stripped bare of everything that is him, remade anew from the debris. It’s just a matter of days, weeks at most. The only thing he can hope for is that he’s lucky enough they won’t take too much too soon and he will still be him.

 

In the light of the sun Stiles can’t stand the anticipation of what’s to come.

 

Stiles can’t stand the intensity of the look. He prepares the breakfast and leaves it on the dinner table. Then he grabs his own carefully counted down quantity of supplements and pushes them inside of his pocket. He quickly moves away, hoping that this time the Were will appreciate even just a little bit what Stiles has done and won’t follow him, demanding change.

 

Quick, careful steps lead him not downstairs, but to the room with the window he likes. He looks around as he goes, wary of anyone coming his way with malicious intent, but the house is silent and still. He decides to hide in there, waiting until such a time he thinks the alpha Were is not anywhere near.

 

At this time, the room is still quite chilly, but it’s still warmer in there than in the rest of the house he is allowed in. Stiles sits heavily on the edge of the windowsill and just breathes. Slowly he calms down and looks outside on the already awake world.

 

He misses going outside, at least those times when his life wasn’t in immediate danger. He really does. The prohibition of going out wasn’t there always - he did some of the work there for other owners and some even allowed the servants to spend their short free time there too. But these cases were few and far in between and the longest he’s been out was accumulated when traveling from one auction to another, with heavy chains on his wrists, ankles, and neck, weighing him down. Still, he misses it.

 

Stiles never quite understood why allowing slaves to go outside was seen as such a sign of leniency and sometimes carelessness. They wouldn’t run. No one with half a brain would try to run. No matter how bad your master was, they could always be worse when they found you. And they would find you. Through the scent, through the tattoo on your neck and the help of others, through outsmarting you before you even tried to make the first step. There was no outrunning a Were. And even if you could, there aren’t places for humans on earth anymore.

 

So why try? Why make yourself a target?

 

Dust scratches at the back of his throat and Stiles coughs. Oh gods he hates the stillness of the air and its stagnant scent. Stiles looks around at the layers of dirt covering the spare furniture of the room and its floor, and decides that he can take care of it today. He was going to spend some time in there either way, seeing that it isn’t like he’s needed elsewhere.

 

He pushes the window open to let some fresh air in and is about to turn around and go cleaning supplies when something in the overgrown garden catches his gaze.

 

No further than 15 feet from the house a bit to his left Stiles sees a bird feeder and leaning against it - a rake. It looks forgotten, damaged by the weather and use alike. It’s completely unlike the tools Stiles found inside of the house, all of them having their place, looking well cared for. Those would be missed if he borrowed one. Stiles isn’t so sure about the rake.

 

 _It would do_ , Stiles realizes. Some adjustments and he could use it as a cane with no one the wiser where it came from and his leg finally, _finally_ would be unburdened of some weight. It would allow him to walk without feeling constant pain and fearing tripping. Always so careful not to take a wrong step. With it he could finally be able to move from one place to another in what didn’t feel like forever.

 

But it was outside and Stiles wasn’t allowed there.

 

Stiles grits his teeth, his nostrils flaring. Why it always was like that?! Why when he found a solution to one of his problems another hundred appeared in its place?! Why no one ever thought that he might be in pain and wanted to help him…

 

Screw them. All of them! He will help himself. He needed it and he will have it.

 

It’s been almost two weeks from the time of The Hunt and Peter is away for 3 days and counting. If Stiles is caught it would be by the alpha. On the other hand, less people inside meant less chances of being discovered. The alpha doesn’t pay attention to him anyway, Stiles assures himself.

 

He can go there using the window. It’s not so far from the ground that he won’t be able to get back the same way. He could use the back doors of the house, true, but they might be connected to some sort of an alarm. Or just the alpha might hear them move. No, the window is better. He just needed a distraction and something to mask the scent from the outside of his body and that’s all. A quick job there and back again and no one would even suspect something was amiss.

 

Stiles comes up with a plan. He goes about his day as he normally would - collecting untouched food, cleaning, and preparing another meal for the Werewolf. He himself eats what he is given and tries to ignore the hunger and the flaring nerves that make his blood quicken in his veins and burn through the meal even faster. He thoroughly airs the whole floor, hoping that it will mask the fresh air on him and waits for the sun to go down in the room. The Weres might see better than humans in the dark, but it still was better than waltzing where he isn’t supposed to be in without any cover. Stiles acts like everything is exactly the same and if the alpha notices something out of place, he doesn’t say anything.

 

Turning to the windowsill, Stiles drags his bad leg and faces the outside and for the first time the gravity of what he’s supposed to do hits him.

 

It’s bad. He shouldn’t. If they found out, they will… Oh gods, what is he doing?

 

But the ground is so close and he can almost feel the relief of using the cane. He did so much already it’s a shame to put it all to waste.

 

He drops heavily to the ground and his legs give out under him. He lands bad, putting more weight on his right leg then he intended and his eyes water. It takes him a few moments to get himself under control again and remember The Plan.

 

Half bended, he goes as quick as he can to the bird feeder and then he grabs the tool and feels as giddy as nauseous. He’s done it. The surprise of actually doing something right freezes him in spot. A sound of a car going off in the distance almost makes him have a heart attack. He turns around looking for anyone watching him, but doesn’t spot anyone. The way back is far quicker with the help of the rake and he can’t find it within himself to regret his decision.

 

Climbing up is a challenge but he somehow manages. Motivation is the key to success and being clawed to death is a really good one. Once in he waits for someone to come, but he is alone. A minute passes by, then another and the house is still as silent as always.

 

 _I did it_ , Stiles thinks. It’s unbelievable. He doesn’t know how, but he succeeded and no one found out. For once in his life, he did something right.

 

Sleep that night comes surprisingly easy.

  
Unfortunately, Stiles may have better instincts and awareness of the surroundings than most humans, might see more, but he isn’t a Were. And it’s because of that, when he was out he didn’t notice a pair of red eyes watching him from one of the windows upstairs.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The promised Part 2 and with it we're finally going somewhere with this story :)

The sound of rain starting suddenly startles Stiles enough to let go of his new staff. It rolls away under the coffee table and he grunts, having to bend down and pick it up.

 

It’s been two days since his little illegal trip outside. After the first rush of adrenaline and endorphins leaves him, he’s stuck knowing just how dangerous what he did was and just how stupid. Gods yes, it is so helpful to have something to lean on while he walks, but it also means that he’s waiting for someone to catch him. It would be easy for them too - just ask one another if they gave it and that’s it. Because if not them then from where exactly Stiles got his staff? And it’s not like he can lie to a Were.

 

The suspension leaves Stiles a ball of nervous energy, jumping at every little shift seen in the corner of his eye. Even though he didn’t talk to or actually see any Hales lately, the feeling of being watched never leaves. Although he tried to make the thuds duller with with a makeshift muffler made of rubber, the additional sound in his movements of wood hitting the floor must be obvious. They must know by now that Stiles uses additional support wherever he goes. He tries to assure himself that they don’t care very much for him and what he does, as long as he doesn’t get in the way. But he can’t quite believe in it himself.

 

The first morning with the rake Stiles adjusts it so it could be used every day. He takes off the tip and adds a muffler in it’s place. He doesn’t have the nerve to use it though. It lays under his bed until he comes back in the evening and nervously checks it if was found and taken. It wasn’t, but this time he tosses and turns in the bed the whole night, chased by images of blood and pain. Before the sun wakes, he’s half set on taking the rake back and pretending like the whole thing never happened. Though if he wasn’t found before, he would sure be now. He’s slowly running out of luck.

 

Stiles’s plans never reach that far ahead. He always concentrates mostly on surviving the day, and if there is some trouble later, the future Stiles can deal with it. That kind of thinking got him in a lot of problems and thus he kind of hates the past Stiles. But he never quite made the change that would stop the vicious circle.

 

Some of the horrors are chased away by the morning light finally breaking the darkness if only a bit. With it Stiles is more bold and daring. But he still reaches and takes his hand away two times before finally gritting his teeth and taking hold.

 

The trip up is easier, but not by far. He still goes carefully, wary not to fall, cursing the person who thought they didn’t need a  handrail along stairs. But once up and walking along the corridors he finally is able to use it and he notices just how much longer it takes before he gets tired. Sometimes the trip from the downstairs to the kitchen would mean two stops and leave him a panting mess. Now, he only stops once after climbing up, and he can go quicker too.

 

Stiles might be proud of himself, even just a little bit.

 

He almost walks into someone after turning the corner, he’s so caught up with his thoughts.

 

Stiles stumbles away, apology already on his lips. He looks to his feet and doesn’t dare to see the expression on the alpha’s face. Because it is the alpha, that much his brain was able to register before shutting down. Stiles almost dares not to breathe and stays still, trying not to bring himself much attention. In the corner of his eye he sees the Were eyeing him, his face blank if not for the slight rise of his upper lip. He doesn’t say anything, but the gaze goes from Stiles to the makeshift cane he’s holding and his nostrils flare.

 

The Werewolf moves again. He pushes Stiles with his broad shoulder, and making the slave stumble into the wall while he tries to catch his balance.

 

It takes Stiles a whole five minutes to be able to walk again. He’s still jumpy the whole day.

  


***

  


Lack of food and silence are not the only things Stiles needs to get used to.

 

After the unnatural brightness of the lab, Stiles’s sight is bad at distinguishing shapes and patterns in dim lighting. Now though, he has only one seeing eye and that doesn’t help. He doesn't want anyone to see, so he covers it up every day, even though it's somewhat healed by now. But it's not like taking them off would make a difference.

 

Dealing with the lack of light that always seems to surround most of the Hale House isn’t easy. Especially when, even if it’s sunny outside, even if he turns on every switch and lamp he can find, it’s not enough. The best he manages to achieve at night is a half-dusk. He walks into things more times than he cares to admit and gets new sets of bruises every day, even if no one as much as speaks to him, much less lays a hand. It's a bit easier to not get unbalanced and hurt himself even more now that he has a cane, but there is a limit to its use.

 

The absence of light is an another thing that shows him the house was never built with humans in mind. It's also why Stiles thinks that his status as a human and slave is something new to the Hales. Weres had it easy - their eyes naturally adapted to all types surroundings - humans though picked the short stick, with their poor senses and weak bodies. The only thing that let them survive as long as they did was how quickly they could breed and produce more livestock, that could be adapted to all kinds requirements.

 

Weres even created breeding farms to make the process go more smoothly. You want a slave that has pale skin and blue eyes? No problem. One that can take a beating and be so weak of a mind that they won’t even think of trying to defend themselves? You came to the right place. But maybe you’re a gentle soul and would prefer a companion, someone skilled in many arts, whom you could talk to and never get bored? Come this way.

 

Probably even Stiles was from one of those places once upon a time. He doesn’t know for sure, but where else could they get him from? A real loving family, something like Weres had? Stiles snorts and wipes down a little harder the dust for a high and historic looking clock. He balances on a chair and tries not to fall down and kill himself. The idea of human family is absurd. Still, it would be nice to remember it. Even if just to know for himself rather than base his beliefs on overheard stories. To have something to think about at night other than the horrors he's seen, that chased him wherever he went. A place he could call his home.

 

He used to fantasize that changing owners so much was a good thing. That it means that he had a much higher probability of ending up in one of those facilities and work there as a sire. Maybe as help in bringing up others. He knows what different masters wanted, he could teach new slaves how to get by, causing themselves minimum pain. Stiles could stay there until he got old in relative comfort and freedom. Once upon a time he was smart and pretty enough to manage it too. He wasn’t broken and worn thin.

 

 _But not now_ , he thinks watching his reflection in polished surface of the antique.

 

He stares at himself for a moment more and then moves on. Other duties are waiting.

 

Night creeps into the Hale house like it never truly left, only hidden in the dark corners, when the day tried and failed to reclaim the place. It falls around Stiles with a hollow echo of long lost chances and hopeless future. He is stuck in the dark kitchen of an almost empty house, surrounded by iron cookware and bits of meat and greens. Preparing dinner no one would eat.

 

Stiles doesn’t know why he is doing it anymore. No one told him to. But no one stopped him either.

 

Even if cooking is actually something Stiles can do decently, when Peter is not there it all goes to waste. The alpha refuses to eat anything Stiles touches.

 

The first time Stiles dares to offer him a prepared snack, the man sneers at the slave and knocks the food out of Stiles’s eager hands. He then reached for something completely different, and prepackaged for a good measure, and slams the doors of a cupboard. Stiles flinches and doesn’t dare to look up until the alpha is gone from the room. He doesn’t get the stupid idea to actively try to engage the Ware in an attempt to please him again after that.

 

What he does is to leave prepared food for him and Peter - if he’s there - at every meal, and make himself scarce before they come. If Peter is gone, Stiles comes back later to see the food untouched and the fridge a little bit emptier. Stiles doesn’t know what the Were wants to show this way, but it’s the alpha's food, paid with his money. He can do whatever he wants with it, Stiles supposes. Though if he wasn’t so terrified of the man, Stiles would call his behavior childish.

 

Stiles gets bad ideas regarding the situation too. He wants to just go to the fridge and put his hands on everything, leaving his prominent scent behind. Unfortunately for the more mischievous part of him, Stiles likes this new moderately pain-free state. He's sure that even painkillers wouldn’t be able to deal with what would happened to him if he did what the little voice in his head tells him to.

 

He doesn’t know what the alpha’s problem is. Does he think Stiles would try to poison him? With what? Werewolves aren't immune to a small number of things - of those Stiles himself only knows of wolfsbane. Does he think Stiles carries something like that around on his person? Plant that is banned by law and if found in slave’s possession would mean a certain kind of death Stiles doesn’t even want to think about?

 

It would be easier if Stiles could eat the leftovers himself. The worst part of feeling starved isn’t not eating real food. It’s making the food for others and knowing he is not allowed to taste any of it, even if the smell itself ties his stomach in knots. Even if it goes to waste.

 

 _Just a bite, just a little sip,_ the traitorous voice at the back of his mind says when he cooks. Then Stiles looks to two badly remodeled fingers in his left hand, that no longer had feeling or full movement, and decides a few hours with a full stomach are not worth it. Stiles doesn’t dare to think what punishment the Alpha Hale would come up with for misconduct like that.

 

He got to eat normal food with other owners. When he was a whore, it wasn’t even leftovers, just a real meal. Balanced in a way that would help them entertain their customers for hours, or so he and others were told. But no. The ban on food is one of the few things that actually were made clear. He is to be limited to the human supplements and their nasty texture of cardboard and a taste of vomit.

 

Taking it twice a day is not enough to sate his hunger, nor is it enough to help his weight they seem _so_ _concerned_ about. But eating it instead of real food is something he was ordered to do and that’s enough.

 

He might look with longing at the food he prepares and is going to throw away, the smell of it might tie his insides in knots, but at the end of the day, Stiles still tries to be good, not to irritate his owner or oppose him. And so he takes a handful of the supplements, washes it down with a glass of water, and goes about his duties. Though some part of him still hopes that when he runs out of it and they’ll so busy with their lives, that it will be less of a problem to just allow Stiles normal food than to go and buy something with only their resident human in mind.

 

Stiles is so caught up with his thoughts that it takes him a second to notice the prickling at the back of his neck.

 

He is watched again, but this time they don’t want to be discreet about it.

 

Looking up to the kitchen’s doors, he sees a dark silhouette - its contour is aglow with the lamp’s light behind it. Luminous red eyes are taking in Stiles’s every move. The slave feels his pulse quicken and a heavy weight settle at the bottom of his belly. He can’t see the alpha’s face - the man stands as if he knows exactly where shadows would be most prominent. But it all doesn't stop Stiles from noticing the man’s arms crossed and almost lazy movement. He isn’t there without a reason. He wants something and is set on taking it too.

 

Stiles looks away quickly. Not fast enough, announces language of the body coming nearer.

 

All it takes is a moment of inattention and the knife Stiles is holding slides in the wrong direction. It cuts deeply into his left hand that up to this point was holding an onion. A sharp pain at the side of Stiles’s forefinger distracts him for a second. He watches frozen as blood from an open wound bleeds freely, but his mind is more focused on the Were he sees in the corner of his eye. The smell of blood is an invitation Stiles unwillingly had just given.

 

The alpha stops near and scents the air.

 

Before Stiles has chance to do anything, he is grabbed by his uninjured arm and turned around. He faces the Were with wide brown eye and weakness that makes his whole body tremble.

 

It’s the first moment since Deaton was there that the man doesn’t pretend Stiles doesn’t exist.

 

Why now, Stiles ask himself. They were doing so well.

 

The Alpha’s - always the alpha, never a person behind red, such red eyes - other hand comes to his face and Stiles jerks back involuntary with a muffled snivel. He doesn’t go far. He’s held strong - too strong, he will bruise at least - in place and the Were comes even closer, crowding Stiles with his strong body. Trapping him against countertop.

 

It’s not his presence, but his gaze directly on Stiles’s that is a final lock keeping him in place.

 

His whole being stills. Even his breath catches inside his throat, choking him and making him lightheaded. He doesn’t think about anything at all. The pounding of his blood is too loud and overshadows every thought but one. _Get away!_ his mind screams at his body, but it’s bound in place by panic.

 

The Were’s grip on Stiles’s face is nothing but gentle. He doesn’t even have his claws out. His fingertips trace the side of the slave’s jaw and move higher, under the bandage. Stiles feels nails lightly scraping again his scars and it seems like no air is left in the room.

 

Stiles doesn’t notice what the man is doing before the dressing covering his worst of recent wounds slip to the floor and he's left exposed. He can do more then. The need to find cover is too great not to. He tries to look away, hide his shame. The gentle hand from before now grabs hard his neglected and too long hair in a fist. The Were uses the grip to steer Stiles’ face to look back at him.

 

Stiles can’t stand the intensity of the gaze and looks to the floor.

 

Before he has a chance to even notice the movement, Stiles is thrown away like a rag doll and hits the kitchen cabinets hard at the end of the room. He is not cast with all the Were’s strength, that much he would later recall, but the pain in his ribs he sustained at The Hunt and thought gone, suddenly comes back to life twice as unbearable and he gasps.

 

The Were stands still for a moment and watches him again. Then he grabs Stiles's cane-staff and moves to go after him. The slave doesn’t have the strength to try and crawl away.

 

“Good news,” Peter’s voice sounds, the man appearing out of nowhere in the entrance to the room. “Deaton just sent his tests back. The slave is not contaminated. Like I said _before._ ” He stops and for the first time takes in Stiles’s cowering form and his alpha’s menacing one. “Am I interrupting something?” he asks, almost cheerfully.

 

Stiles’s owner looks from him to his beta and back again.

 

“Put it into the chair,” he finally says to Peter, but doesn’t take his eyes from Stiles.

 

“Huh?”

 

“You heard me.” His eyes finally leave Stiles and he walks in the opposite direction from before, leaving the room.

 

Peter stops him with an hand on his shoulder as the alpha is about to move past him. “Derek, it hasn’t even been even three weeks. Deaton said that he won’t be ready for another-”

 

The Were looks to his hand and Peter takes it away promptly. “I’m the alpha and I say _put it into the chair,_ ” he sneers and leaves the kitchen.

 

“It will kill him,” Peter calls behind him. “But you don’t care, do you? My, my, nephew. How much you’ve grown.”

 

The man stops and looks back at Peter and then Stiles, his hand clenches at the cane he's still holding. “Do it.”

 

The beta smiles and bows mockingly. “Yes, my alpha.”

 

Stiles doesn’t even register pain anymore. He watches after the retreating alpha and at the smug beta. He suddenly remembers what true terror feels like.

  


***

  


Peter leads Stiles to one of the rooms at the back of the house that stayed locked at all times. Once, when Stiles tried to open it previously, he must have triggered some sort of an alarm, because the beta materialized out of thin air and pulled him away. Stiles had been sure Peter wasn’t even in the house before.

 

“All in good time,” he promised then and smiled with his trademark smile that always managed to creep Stiles out.

 

Now Stiles knows why the man stopped him before. It was not to startle Stiles prematurely.

 

The room they enter is even darker than the rest of the house, but when Peter pushes a switch on, it lights up brightly, like no other area before it. Stiles needs to blink a few times just to be able to see again. He regrets it right away.

 

It’s not spacious, like the living room with its cozy sofa Stiles never allowed himself to sit on and wooden furniture, decorated with warm earth tones. It’s not prestigious and sharp like the kitchen, with every pot and spoon in place, lying exactly where they’re supposed to. It’s not like Stiles’s room or the healing chamber he met Deaton in, that look uncared for and mostly forgotten, cobwebs and dust gathering in corners.

 

Instead it’s just cold and dehumanized.

 

The interior of it is created with white and metal, harmoniously merging to one menacing image. Stiles can’t spot a particle of dirt anywhere, or an item out of place. It’s mostly just cold alloy tables with straps, chairs that aren’t for sitting, and medical equipment Stiles knows all too well.

 

He had thought that he’d escaped the lab for good. But there it is - following him like a predator in the night, waiting for him to let his guard down before it strikes. What fills him with shame and self-hatred is that he did. He let himself be lulled into false sense of security and not once did he assume that it could get as bad as it was back when she was forced to get him out.

 

Stiles starts to back away but is stopped by Peter.

 

“Now, now. You were warned in advance of your role in this household, Stiles, don’t act so surprised,” he says and directs Stiles’s unwilling body deeper into the room, to the chairs that look more like medieval torture devices than anything else.

 

Stiles was _lucky_ enough to try out newer models while at his stay at the lab. They used something that looked like mechanical massage tables instead of chairs with a hole in the back. But the straps were just as tight and uncomfortable. The endgame was just as distressing and maddening too. There is no point with Hales to pretend to care about slave’s comfort, he supposes. In contrast, the medical facility wanted to make it known just how compassionate they were to the test subjects. They wouldn’t, of course, call themselves ‘humanitarian’, when in time the word lost its prime meaning and started to be an equivalent to ‘being like a human; senseless; cruel’. Stiles always thought that the last part was exactly why they should still use it.

 

“I wonder,” Peter says, interrupting the dead silence, making Stiles almost jump when he forgets where and with whom he is. “Did she make you choose which one you prefer? Did she allow you to have a say in this manner? It wouldn’t surprise me if she did,” he murmurs in a soft voice, and even if he addresses Stiles if feels more like he’s talking to himself.

 

Peter finally chooses one of the chairs that is fastened to the floor and pushes Stiles into it. The slave sits down obediently, but the rising dread makes his grip on the world start to slip. He doesn’t have the presence of mind to wonder whom is the ‘she’ Peter talks about.

 

Securing the spark is usually the handler’s job, but it amuses Peter to make Stiles do most of the work himself, when they both know what's coming and how he feels about it. He sits as instructed on the uncomfortable, solid chair, but his main focus is on keeping a panic attack at bay.

 

Stiles starts slowly with his legs and fastens them tightly to the piece of furniture. By now he knows that the bonds are as much for his protection during what’s about to happen as for keeping him from running away. Sometimes seizures are impossible to avoid. If the alpha’s claws are still deep inside of his neck by then, the Were can do some serious damage to his body. Stiles once knew a girl whose caretaker wasn’t as thorough in his task as Stiles’s were. She ended up paralyzed from the neck down, soon to be never seen again, when it turned out her body could no longer generate anything useful to Weres. Sometimes, when he can’t sleep at night, Stiles wonders what had happened to her, if she was even still alive. He hopes for her sake she isn’t.

 

Peter gets impatient when Stiles is trying to do the bonds of his right arm and just slaps his hand away. He quickly bonds his hands and moves to the back to secure Stiles’s head, but firstly gags him with a thick and heavy piece. It’s uncomfortable and makes his jaw ache just after a minute in it.

 

It’s uncalled for anyway.

 

It was one of the rules he learned quite early in this life. You don’t scream. Not ever. Even when you think the pain couldn’t get worse, that if you just let it out it would help to deal with it, not even then. They would show you just how wrong you are. How the ache in your bones _could_ get worse. That the punishment isn’t over until they say so, until they let it to be.

 

They had too sensitive ears, and you wouldn’t- _couldn’t_ make your pain theirs too. Not if you wanted it to finally stop.

 

Peter does the rest. The type of chair he picked ends with Stiles’s head being secured with two bands - one at the top of his head and one keeping his chin in place. Another three straps end up at his shoulders, chest, and midsection, and his already aching ribs scream in protest. Stiles’s arms and legs have four of them each. Even if he sits still and doesn’t try anything to make the man mad or to make him think he plans to escape in some way, the straps end up digging into his flesh painfully.

 

The alpha doesn’t join them until Stiles’s hands and feet tingle from the lack of blood, breath comes in hard huffs or air, and he can’t even move a tenth of an inch.

 

“So nice of you to join us, Derek. Stiles here was especially eager to see you, weren’t you, Stiles?”

 

Stiles’s nerves are so fried and he is so worn thin with worry, that it actually takes a lot of restraint - and not only the psychical kind - to keep him from telling Peter to go to hell.

 

“Is it ready?” the alpha asks.

 

With the corner of his eye Stiles sees Peter shrug. “I guess so. Are you?”

 

His owner doesn’t respond, but his jaw sets a little bit tighter. He moves with a vigor in his steps and stands behind the chair. All Stiles can see now is an empty room. He doesn’t have the tiniest idea of when they will start.

 

Stiles can’t quite fight tremble of his body. Nor can he fight the upcoming panic attack any longer. All hope of it being over quickly, before the latter has a chance to settle in, dies like a yesterday’s dream. He closes his eyes, clenches his fists, and concentrates on the nails digging into his palms.

 

 _Please don’t take anything. I don’t have anything left to spare. Please don’t take anything. Please-_ He wants to beg, but he knows… He _knows_ that even if he was able to, they were all the more likely to do it, to take more than they needed, just to fuck with him.

 

A light touch at the back of this neck makes him jerk hard and pull at the bonds. The hand doesn’t go away and mocks him by stroking the tender skin there as one would a trapped wild animal.

 

Then, before Stiles has time to wonder, there is pain. It makes him gasp and wheeze as the longs claws go deep under his skin.

 

And it’s strange.

 

He isn’t instantly pulled inside of his head, forgetting all at once about the real word. Made to relive the most vibrant memories he has, that end badly for him most commonly. He isn’t even assaulted by bits of sounds, images, and emotions he can’t quite place. Instead, there is a burn of a wound being reopened and a sense of suction. It tugs on Stiles somewhere deep inside, but isn’t very successful at it. The last usually only comes after, but it doesn’t hurt any less in this form. It make his eye water.

 

 _It’s the alpha’s first time_ , Stiles realizes with a sudden clarity. It makes his earlier dread almost double. The man isn’t trained to do what he tries to do. He can hurt Stiles beyond repair even without trying and do much damage, if not to Stiles’s mind, then to his body.

 

Stiles makes a sound around the gag and it’s what it takes for the heavy silence to be broken by Peter.

 

“Do you feel it?” he asks, his voice is full of impatience.

 

“A little. But nothing like they described,” the alpha grunts. He sounds strained, like he is trying not to lose control.

 

He shouldn't be able to speak as well as third party at this point. It means he is doing it all absolutely wrong. But it also means that Stiles might yet come out of it without bits and pieces missing.

 

“Maybe the spark is defective.”

 

“Yeah, maybe,” his owner answers halfheartedly and tries to do whatever he is doing even harder.

 

Stiles isn’t. He’s actually quite potent, if his handlers at the lab were to be believed. But it isn’t enough to just try to take the power of the spark. If you really wanted it, you needed in some way become the spark. You needed something that would anchor the power once you take it, or else it won’t stick. It meant you needed to take something with you as well aside from the power which will come willingly after. It meant that you needed a memory, a feeling, a thought, something, _anything_ , that the power knew already.

 

He isn’t going to voluntarily give that information no matter how much it hurt.

 

The alpha retracts his claws from the slave’s skin and Stiles is finally able to breath again.

 

_It’s over. For now it’s finally over. I didn’t lose anything. It’s all still there._

 

Peter rounds the chair and looks at Stiles. He cocks his head to the side and critically watches the still conscious and mostly cohered human. “Or _maybe_ you’re too gentle,” he says. “Do it again. This time like you meant it.”

 

Stiles’s eye widen. The beta can’t be serious. Not just after. Not without giving Stiles at least some time to-

 

But there is shift in the air behind him and-

 

Stiles can’t help but break his rule and scream from around the gag as the already thorn wounds on the back of his neck is opened once more.

  


***

  


_“Derek, look out!”_

 

_He hears and avoids crashing into the tree that grows suddenly, when he turns to his right at the last minute. Laura is at his side in a second. Her face and clothes are dirty, but she still looks like a proper alpha heir. Derek both admired and hated this quality about her._

 

_“I swear, I leave you for a minute and you’re at it again. Mum will have my hide, if you come back with more of your own blood on your clothes! Yeez, you’re such a clutz!” she says and shoves him._

 

_Derek shoves back. “Am not!”_

 

_“Are too!”_

 

_“Am not!”_

 

_“Are too!”_

 

_“Am-”_

 

_“As fascinating as it is to see your own progeny scaring away half of the game in the preserve, care to say what exactly you are doing,” his dad asks, coming closer. He has Cora sitting at his hip, who looks as unhappy as Derek feels. But her feelings were probably born out of being banned from the grounds and hunting more rabbits instead of being annoyed by an older sibling._

  


_***_

  


_“Derek. Hi, I’m Derek. And you are?” He tries the line for the thousandth time. “Hello, my name is Derek. What’s your name?” He changes. No. It’s too official. She will think he’s a loser. “Hale. Derek Hale. Sup?” Now he just sounds like a douche._

 

_He sees her exit the plant for like the hundredth time. Her blond hair looks dirty and she looks tired, but there is determination on her face he likes so much. Derek is not being creepy observing here, he’s not!_

 

_It’s the moment. The moment when two people meet and find out they were soul mates fated to be together all along._

 

_Derek moves and stands in the doors he knows by now she will soon vanish behind. As he predicted she leaves the garbage behind and turns around. She stops in her tracks once she spots him. She looks wary and unsure. Derek smells fear and anger starting to pour out of her._

 

_It’s bad, it’s not supposed to go this way._

 

_She tries to get past him. He moves just so it’s a bit harder._

 

_“Sup. I mean, hey. Hi! I’m-”_

 

_“In my way,” she finishes for him. From the distance he sees her cold gaze on him and he wants to whine a little bit._

 

_It wasn’t supposed to go this way!_

 

_“What’s the holdup, Kate?!” Calls an older, male voice from the inside. “You coming?”_

 

_“Yeah!” She moves past him, even if it means that she hits him with her shoulder as she goes._

 

_Kate. He finally has her name._

  


****

  


_“Derek. Come here, baby, come here,” she calls, laughter filling her voice. He takes two awkward steps and stops looking at her uncertain. “That’s it, you’re doing so great, my baby. Your father is going to freak once he sees he missed your first steps.”_

 

_He reaches his arms up. He is tired. He wants to cuddle. She doesn’t come rushing like usual and it’s a hard blow to his heart. He takes another step - she can’t leave him, he is hers, she needs him - and falls down._

 

_Tears run down his cheeks freely._

 

_She takes him into her arms and he hides his face into her shoulder. “Shh, shh. It’s all right. You did great! Waiting for your dad, huh? I knew sooner or later you two are going to gang up against me. Shh, don’t cry, sweetie, shh. See what mommy has here? Your snuggler!”_

 

_He grabs it and hugs it tightly._

 

_“He still likes that ugly thing?” asks a new voice and Derek looks up. He knows that smell! Tears are forgotten as he reaches for him._

 

_The newcomer rolls his eyes and takes Derek into his arms. She gives him away smiling fondly. Derek babbles happily, still clinging his toy. The big biiig head above him nods and nods agreeing with what he says._

 

_“You shouldn’t have bought it if you don’t like it, Peter.”_

 

 _“It was meant to be_ ironic. _It’s a fox. We’re wolves, we don’t like foxes._ ”

 

_“Well, what we have here is called fate's irony, little brother, so you weren’t that far off.”_

 

_“I hate you.”_

 

_“Love you too!”_

  


***

  


_The black smoke fills his lungs and stings his eyes, but it’s the smell and the taste that make him dry-heave. He coughs weakly, trying to get rid of the aftertaste of charred meat that fills the air. The meat of his own body._

 

_“Derek!” He hears but doesn’t at first recognize the voice full of pain and panic as his mother’s. It blends with the other screams that are so out of place inside his childhood home._

 

_He tries to move, but his leg’s trapped. There is sound around him, but he can’t quite understand what is happening. He coughs again and something black and fleshy falls from his lips._

 

_“Derek!” she calls again._

 

_“Mom?” He answers, but his voice is weak. Even though she hears him._

 

_She's at is side in the time it takes him to blink and the pressure is taken off his limb. “Can you walk?” she asks. She is in her beta form and her eyes are glowing red, but it’s exactly what he needs to feel like it’s all going to be okay. That his mom is there and will save them all._

 

_“Yes?” he tries, unsure. His wounds try to close and heal, but he's too weak for it to work. She nods and smiles at him, but the moment is broken. The smile dies too quickly as she looks away._

 

_“Laura, take him with you. Go to the safe house.”_

 

_Laura steps closer, she is covering her nose with a sleeve. “But Dad, and the twins, and Aunt Helen-”_

 

_“Are supposed to be with Peter and Cora already,” his mother explains patiently, even if her grip on Derek is almost painful with the need to not let him go. “I need to go back for your cousins.”_

 

_“I can help you,” Laura sounds broken._

 

_“You can help me by taking care of your brother.” She pushes Derek into Laura’s arms. They stand still. “Go!” she commands with her alpha voice and his sister can’t fight that. Talia looks at them, “I love you both,” she says after a beat, but doesn’t stay to hear their answer._

 

_A wall of fire closes behind her._

  


_***_

  


_“Hey, Derek, wanna grab a bite?”_ Happiness _._

 

 _“Derek, stop!”_ Fury.

 

 _“She’s dead. You’re the alpha now, Derek.”_ Resentment.

 

 _“I’m going to be right back. Okay, Derek?”_ Fear _._

 

 _“I’m so proud of you, Derek! Wait ‘til we tell your uncle about it.”_ Bashfulness _._

 

 _“Who’s my little Der-Bear? You are!”_ Glee _._

 

 _“What am I even supposed to do with you, Derek? She would be so disappointed.”_ Anger _._

 

 _“Be a good boy for daddy, Derek.”_ Sadness _._

 

 _“Derek.”_ Despair _._

 

 _“Derek!”_ Surprise _._

 

 _“Derek, Derek, Derek.”_ Annoyance _._

 

 _“…Derek?”_ Shock.

 

 _“Der-!”_ Hatred _._

  


***

  


Darkness.

 

Pain.

 

Emotions he can’t name.

 

Light. So much light. He can’t see anything.

 

Sound?

 

No. Darkness. Always only darkness.

  


***

  


It takes a long time before he comes to be aware of his body. He drifts in and out of consciousness, with the reality slowly setting in. He doesn’t want it. He prefers to go back to the darkness.

 

The world cares nothing for his wishes. With a vengeance, it slips into his bones, under his lids. It tears him away from the familiar half land, where he exists in a state of nonentity, but not quite death either.

 

It only takes a moment, after he's finally able to feel his limbs, for him to wish he didn’t. They’re heavy and every little shift tells him they’ve been in a state of locked muscles for too long. He’s thankful for the binding of his head. He’s sure he wouldn’t be able to hold it up on his own otherwise. It takes all of what's left of his strength to open his eye and make himself see.

 

Through the haze that clouds his vision he sees a person that watches him with concern written on their face. They have dirty blond hair and kind eyes.

 

“Dad?”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I know you might be disappointed about the cliffhanger for the last chapter, but I promise it will yet serve a purpose.

The person doesn’t move away. He wants to reach them, but the binding on his whole body won’t allow movement.

 

“Dad?” he tries to say again through the gag, but all that comes out is a muffled whine.

 

Stiles blinks and the world becomes somewhat less clouded. The light is still mostly blinding him, but it also jump starts his brain. Stiles's thoughts become clearer by the second, even though his head hurts so much it feels like it’s going to burst.

 

He doesn’t know why he asked the person for his father. He doesn’t have one. Once upon a time he had to have had a sire, but that was all he could ever hope for. No father, no mother, no family.

 

The man - because he’s just a young man Stiles now sees, looking almost his age - says something, but Stiles’s hearing doesn’t function so well right now and it comes to him in bits and pieces.

 

“...awake? can... ...me? ...understand what... man... up pretty bad. ...Stiles? ...Peter ...Stiles. ...hey... out of...” He gives up for a minute, chewing at his bottom lip. He's crouching before Stiles’s chair and doing a terrible job of staying still. He doesn’t seem to know what to do, but he must have come up with something, because his eyes lit up unexpectedly. He moves to find something behind Stiles’s chair.

 

Stiles stiffens at that. He hates when someone is behind him, especially when he is completely helpless and left to their wishes. He doesn’t even know who the man is, but is almost certain he’s also a Were and that makes things doubly dangerous. He doesn’t want to know what the Hales would say if they smell an unfamiliar Were on him or find that he allowed himself to be used by someone else. Where are they anyway? Stiles’s breath quickens and he can feel restraints again compressing his chest. He needs to calm down before he suffocates. It’s hard to do with an unfamiliar Were left to do what he wants with him. Even harder still when Stiles notices the state of the room he woke up to.

 

It feels like forever before the man emerges again. He is carrying a small vial in his hand, containing some sort of liquid. Stiles makes a distressed sound at the sight.

 

“Hey, it’s okay. It won’t hurt you,” the man assures, trying to place the vial near his face.

 

Stiles’s whole body tenses as he tries to back away, even though he is unable to. The man takes the hint and puts his hand away, frowning a little.

 

“Yeah… I have no idea what to do with you. Peter only said to take you back to your room, not how to deal with all  _ this _ .” He gestures at Stiles and the room both.

 

So he knows Peter and is there doing his bidding, Stiles learns, thanks to the off hand comment. Thank the gods.

 

With a shadow of inevitable threat no longer hanging directly over him Stiles relaxes a bit. And in that moment he feels it coming sooner than expected.

 

He needs to be freed  _ now _ .

 

Stiles tries to catch the Were’s gaze and signal for him to unbind him. The man stands there confused. Stiles doesn’t. have.  _ time _ ! He makes whining sound deep inside his throat, squeezing his eyes shut. He tries to ease it a bit taking deep calming breaths, holding it in, and letting out evenly, but his mouth is sealed shut and his nose doesn’t seem to work anymore. He can’t focus. His thoughts are getting fuzzy again and the world narrows to the frantic sound of his heart and burning in his lungs.

 

He more observes with unseeing eyes than actually feels and notices the restraints being lifted, but when the ones on his right hand fall, he all but rips his other arm free as the Were works on his legs. In that moment he doesn’t care about propriety. In that moment all he needs is to get away.

 

His arms and legs don’t work. Trembling and spasms of muscles are already settling in and it will take hours before some of it goes away. He still uses them to crawl as far as he can from the damned chair as he can.

 

Once there, he dry-heaves with the gag still present in his mouth.

 

_ Oh gods, oh gods! _

 

Panic builds inside of him, gripping his chest hard and squeezing until there is no air left. He feels phantom claws on his neck and what little oxygen was left to him disappears and he’s left gasping. Stiles scraps at the back of his head, trying to unlock the damn thing that’s blocking his mouth, but his hands are too shaky and all he manages it to tear out his own hair.

 

_ What have I done. _

 

Through the haze he feels someone’s touch on him. It spooks him and he tries to back away, but the person moves to go after him. He’s spoken to then, and when that doesn’t get any response, pulled up. There is no fight left in Stiles anymore, no resistance or self-preservation. Panic burns through his every emotion and conscious though with a vicious force, leaving only ashes and dying out sparks of his psyche. He’s dragged and led, and he leans most of his weight on the warm body beside him. He can’t not. He stumbles awkwardly. What he wants is to crawl into a small safe place and wait things out there, but the man beside him is relentless. Stiles almost doesn’t notice as he leaves the bright lighting of The Room and is guided away and away still, and finally down, into his own room.

 

The man sits Stiles at his bed and gently removes the gag. Stiles is grateful. Oh, so  _ grateful _ . The man then backs away, as if he knows that his presence makes it harder for Stiles.

 

Stiles feels faint and sways, even though he’s sitting. The familiarity of the surrounding helps, but the trip down wasn’t worth it. It took all of him, and thinking about how he’s going to ever get back to  _ before _ , sends Stiles into another wave of panic attack.

 

It feels like hours before Stiles can get a grip on himself and fight the panic down. Shutting his mind down and concentrating only on breathing exercises he’s been shown before helps.

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Stiles notices that the man who led him down didn’t leave, like he assumed he would. He sits on the floor, his back against the wall that opens to show the stairs, and waits. For what, Stiles’s doesn’t know, but somehow he finds he doesn’t mind his presence right now. It’s bizarre, but it’s actually comforting.

 

They spend some time like this. Not talking, not moving. The Were looks mostly at his hands and Stiles watches how the world outside wakes up. He can’t think about what happened in The Room, about what he did and what it meant for him. Every time he does the panic flares inside of him again, and he shuts down the train of thoughts before it can leave him  a wailing mess again.

 

The Were stands up again only after the sun is high in the sky once more, and Stiles’s heartbeat is less erratic. He doesn’t move to Stiles’s side or go away. Instead he directs his steps to the boxes, Stiles never dared to touch, and opens up one of them. When he turns around there is a red hoodie in his hands and it’s what he gives Stiles a moment later.

 

Stiles looks at it with confusion written on his face.

 

“You’re cold, aren’t you?” the Were says offhandedly shrugging, but Stiles sees the way he watches as he himself traces the soft and warm material with his thin fingers unconsciously. It’s like he’s afraid that Stiles is going to chide him.

 

Only now Stiles notices how his own skin is covered with goosebumps and how he can’t quite stop shivering in the crisp morning air. He grips the clothing hard and pushes it against himself. The Were means for Stiles to wear it.

 

“Thank you,” Stiles says. He doesn’t add the man’s status in the pack to the sentence as a symbol of a respect, because he doesn’t know it, but deep down he knows that this time the Were will be forgiving. Stiles feels something start to clutch his heart, but this time it’s not unpleasant. He welcomes it, even if it squeezes at his throat and makes it hard to say anything.

 

The Were nods in understanding and steps away. He doesn’t go as far as before but he leaves Stiles’s personal space with room to spare. “I’m Isaac,” he introduces himself. “Peter said your name is Stiles,” he states, but there is a note of question in his voice.

 

Stiles bows his head in agreement and some tension leaves Isaac’s face.

 

“Great. So. I got you things,” he points to the boxes now behind him. “I didn’t know if you were going to be a male or a female. Peter and Derek must have decided on that just before they got you. I got little for both. Some things are probably going to be useless, so leave what you don’t want or need inside. I’ll take it away later.”

 

Stiles isn’t exactly sure what things he could need. He had clothing, food, and a place to sleep in. What more could he want? He also had no idea why Isaac was talking as if his job was to take care of Stiles. Was he a slave handler of some sorts? They usually were older, proven they could be trusted during less demanding tasks. More often than not they were a low ranking pack mate. Also, there was only need for one if there was a large amount of servants to keep in check. As far as Stiles knows, Hales owned only him.

 

Isaac sees his turmoil. “I work for Derek, and well, sometimes Peter,” he scratches at the back of his neck as if he is not too happy about the later part. “My job is to help around sometimes and now making sure you don’t die. So don’t die if you can help it.” He grimaces, clearly thinking about the state he found Stiles in and what followed.

 

_ That was the plan all along, _ Stiles thinks.

 

What Isaac said still doesn’t explain much about his position in the pack to Stiles, but one thing was sure - he's Stiles’s superior. Where he had been up to this point and is most of the time Stiles is left alone in the house, is a question he leaves for later.

 

“It helps, doesn’t it?” the Were asks, changing the subject. Stiles looks to him, puzzled. “Being around things you’re used to?” He continues.

 

Stiles shuts his eye and nods. When he had a panic attack in the past he always found himself stashed in a quiet and relatively safe environment. It used to annoy him to find himself there after the attack, before he realized that the space his caretaker created for him helped to lessen some of the side effects. When he opens his eye again, he sees Isaac shift nervously.

 

“It helped me too,” he finally admits. He looks like he’s not quite sure if it’s something he should share with a slave.

 

It’s strange to hear this kind of a confession from a Were. Strength is something they value the most and admitting to weakness for them is far worse than it is for humans, who everyone knew were powerless anyway. Speaking about a Were who is mistreated is a taboo, but it actually happening in real life? Not so much. Weres are known for their endurance. It’s not uncommon for them to show their emotions quite plainly, using physical force instead of words. It isn’t rare for some to push it too far and actually hurt others. Especially if the other party is of a lower social standing or with lesser power.

 

The addition tells Stiles as much as a showing of the color of Isaac’s eyes would. He can’t be sure, of course, but he thinks the Were must be packless, an omega. That’s why he said he works for Derek and Peter, instead something better indicative of a partnership in the pack. His status, even though much better than a common slave’s, doesn’t allow him much protection. Maybe it’s even the alpha he works for who hurt him.

 

Stiles doesn’t offer Isaac a comforting touch or even a smile, but he nods again in understanding and the Were smiles a little at the acknowledgment.

 

“You’re good now?” he asks.

 

Stiles thinks about how they hurt him, what he saw, what it meant for them as well as for him, what he learned just now, how bad his situation was bound to become. He nods anyway.

 

Isaac hesitates a moment, looking at Stiles. He goes back to the pile of boxes and pushes some of them aside, taking one of the smaller ones and digging inside. When he comes back this time, he has a white and clean bandage in his hands and he gives it to Stiles.

 

“I- Here. For your…” He points at his own left side of his own face.

 

It took less than a day and Stiles forgot. It doesn’t matter that he was unconscious for the most of it. The previous dressing of his wound must be still on the kitchen’s floor where Stiles lost it before Peter took him to The Room. He turns around so the scars are no longer visible to Isaac. His unhealthily white skin colors with a faint blush.

 

The Were turns his gaze away, taking pity, and says to the almost empty room, “Peter also said you’re not to go anywhere right now.” He opens his mouth a few times as if he means to say something more, but he decides against it. He leaves the room, taking a few stairs at a time and doesn’t look back.

  
  


***

 

Another few hours go by and Stiles is left in the silence of his room for too long. He can’t stand it any more. Not when his mind is all over the place and he doesn’t know what occurred when he passed out any more than he knows how to deal with and explain that what had happened wasn’t his fault.

 

He wastes some time tending to his face and aching ribs, and digging through the pile left under the wall. His walk is awkward again. He doesn’t know what happened to his staff after- After. But he hopes that he will find it again once he gets out. For now he stays put, like Isaac told him to and tries not to go mad with keeping himself busy.

 

It seems that the boxes he first assumed were kept in his room for storage actually contain everything a human could possibly want. Clothes for any weather, boots, supplements, hygiene products and medicine. He even finds a comforter and a night light. They put up a good fight, but finally award for the best thing Stiles now owns goes to a pair of pajamas. He never had one of these - in the past he made do with his most worn out shirt.

 

Yes, as Isaac said there is a lot of things he has absolutely no use for, but it’s hard to just part with them and not think about something they would be good for. This type of thinking makes him stash tampons under the sink (they are ideal for dressing puncture wounds) and gentler female hygiene products (which don’t make his wounds hurt so much when washed, as mostly alcohol-based items for men did), among others.

 

Stiles straightens and looks at his reflection in the mirror. It won’t be long now until his wounds close for good and and he won’t have to bother with them so much. In all, he doesn’t look any worse than before and he feels this way too. He didn’t hurt himself much when in the room. It was so different in the past, the pain lingered in his bones for so long, but not now.

 

It’s different because the connection went the other way and Stiles-

 

Stiles had assaulted an alpha.

 

No one would care that he didn’t do it on purpose. Even Stiles wouldn’t and it was his fate that was hanging by a thread. Intention didn’t matter, only action did. And his action resulted in breaking into Derek’s mind and stealing his memories.

 

Stiles froze.  _ I just called him Derek. _

 

He never used an alpha’s name. Never. It made them too familiar, too  _ human. _ It blurred the line between a person and an owner. The two were as different from each other as  was possible and needed to be handled as such. The first, Stiles would listen to, get to know, maybe even talk with freely, but it felt like it was  _ his _ choice. The other could do with him everything they wanted and their social status allowed it, no questions asked, even if they weren’t an alpha. Forgetting the line between the two could mean a disaster. Forgetting about and crossing the line in the past cost him a leg and to this day he could feel the price of his misstep.

 

It seems the rules didn’t matter much now. Every time Stiles now thinks about his owner, the name ‘Derek’ pops out uninvited in his own thoughts. He’s more now than just an owner, just an alpha or a Were. He is a person with a past and feelings and thoughts and-

 

And it’s a disaster. If he slips, if he ever calls him by this name… It stresses Stiles out just to think about how much more effort he will have to put into monitoring his every move, every syllable from now on.

 

Maybe it won’t matter. Maybe Derek will just kill him anyway for what he already did, instead for waiting for an additional offense.

 

But what did he do exactly?

 

Breaching someone’s mind was not something that was taught to test subjects. Nor was it something anyone Stiles knew spoke about. He didn’t even think it was possible, not without claws deep inside someone’s neck. But he did it, didn’t he? He stole an alpha’s memories and probably didn’t loose any himself. He doesn’t feel so much weaker either and the ache of his brain disappears in record speed. How is that even possible?

 

There are millions of questions in mind and all of them need  answers. But Isaac said to stay put. That it was an order from Peter.

 

It’s bad to antagonize anyone with more power than one has, but when you are a slave, it means almost everyone. While Isaac and Peter are Weres, they aren’t Stiles’s owners and it’s Derek -  _ his alpha _ \- that Stiles might have hurt and stolen from. It’s also him who might retaliate and hurt Stiles a thousand times more. Stiles needs to know what happened when the alpha tried to take away some of his spark. He needs to know what he has done and how much damage control is required.

 

Stiles looks at himself and sees a determination. Even if he can’t quite admit it to himself his mind is already set.

 

He loses his worn shoes and prowls from the bathroom to his room. The faint sound of bare feet on a stone floor and his forcefully calmed breath are the only things he can hear. It’s too loud, they might hear, but he can’t do anything about it. He prays to the gods that the Weres are preoccupied with something else and won’t pay attention to what he’s doing. He manages to only takes five steps on the wooden stairs, before they crack loudly under his weight and he freezes. It’s an awkward position for his bad leg and the muscles cramp there, but there is nothing he can lean on.

 

A minute goes by. No one comes. No sound is audible with his poor human hearing, but he can’t quite shake the feeling of being caught. His heart is frantically beating inside of his chest as if it’s trying to break free. His leg no longer supports his weight and he needs to lean on his palms, pushed against two steps up, to not to fall back and crash to the floor. Crawling his way up is the only way he can cover the long distance to the doors and so it’s what he does. Dignity is as foreign concept to him as slave rights.

 

When he emerges at the top, he needs to take a breather. He pushes his forehead against the cold, stone wall of the hallway and tries to shake away the fainting spell that tries to overcome his body. He needs to eat something. Even if nothing was taken, he still spent a night strapped to a chair and had a panic attack. Human supplements don’t give him much energy on a good day, but at least they allowed him to power through. Now he neither had them, nor any other meal in a long time and it’s showing.

 

Droplets of sweat drip from his forehead and he wipes them, mad with just how weak and fragile he seems to be, since a mere climbing of stairs almost sends him into cardiac arrest.

 

Stiles listens by the doors for any indication that the others were near. When he doesn’t hear anything, he pushes his head out and looks around almost expecting for Peter to stand guard by his doors, waiting to catch him red-handed with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

 

What he is doing is a terrible  _ terrible _ idea. He knows that, he does. But he can’t help himself. He needs to know. To see again what he saw the first time after waking up and  _ understand _ .

 

Every corridor, each room he passes is a potential place where he’ll meet his end. Stiles does anything in his power to cross the stretch from downstairs to The Room the quickest and quietest way he can, but exhaustion catches up with him finally and his right leg is throbbing so painfully right now. In the end he leans on the walls of the long corridors, dragging his limb slightly behind. His labored breathing can be heard clearly if one were try to look for it. They will hear him, that’s no longer a question. But he still doesn’t know if they will do anything about it.

 

Arriving at his destination, Stiles stops for a second, not knowing what to expect. Will it really be easier to understand what happened if sees it again? Maybe not, but he’s like a moth drawn to the flames. The sudden shock hurts no less than being burned when he pushes the suspiciously open doors and sees evidence of what happened before clearly and fully for the first time.

 

The Room is a mess, the furniture is in pieces. He can't be sure, but there is something on the walls that might have been part of the jars, that decorated the shelves on the far wall, as well something that Stiles is unwilling to categorize as blood. Most of the bright lights seem to no longer be working. It doesn't matter how many switches Stiles pushes into which position. Some of them hang from the ceiling, broken.

 

It looks like someone faced a battle and lost it, giving their life in there. Stiles wonders how he might have missed the extent of it before, panic attack or not. He stares at it all in a confused awe. If he had questions about what happened before, they multiplied by a thousand.

 

What  _ did _ he do?

 

Surely stealing a few memories couldn’t lead to such a result.

 

_ It’s bad, it’s bad, it’s bad. _

 

He should have listened to Isaac, he should have stayed in his room. What happened, is that Stiles’s power must have unleashed something and whatever that was, it didn’t bode well for him. Judging by how the most damage was centered around the chair he was put in last night, but ended in some distance from it, something, or  _ someone _ , was protecting him from the worst burn of it.

 

And now he was here again. Powerless and helpless. Without the protection that might have saved his life.

  
Stiles creeps backwards, shuts the doors behind him. And finds himself face first against the wall when a strong hand pushes him into it from behind. A shout of a surprise and fear gets stuck inside of his suddenly tight throat.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess you weren't expecting an update so soon? ;) You can go and thank for it [let-me-wander](http://let-me-wander.tumblr.com/), whom is the best beta on the planet and such a great person.  
> Now without further ado...

“I said to stay _put_ ,” Peter snarls and tightens his hold. His claws dig into Stiles’s scalp. This time a loud hiss of pain manages to leave the slave’s mouth through the clenched teeth.

 

“And I told him to!” responds Isaac. Peter shifts to the side and drags his claws accordingly. He must have communicated what he thinks of Isaac’s trying with his body language, because the latter adds, “I thought he was intelligent enough to do so.”

 

Isaac is mad at Stiles, that much is clear. In that moment, Stiles knows that whatever positive emotions the young Were might have had for him vanished into thin air. However unintentionally, Stiles undermined his passion in the eyes of the second of the pack he serves. It’ll take a lot of effort to make Isaac forget that fact.

 

“Go make us some breakfast. I’ll deal with this,” Peter snaps and, with one last push, unhands Stiles. The human scrambles away, but does everything to try and not to look like he’s going to run.

 

Isaac leaves them at once, but not before Stiles catches the look of silent fury on his face. _Just marvelous_ , Stiles thinks, biting his lower lip.

 

Peter shifts and the movement guides Stiles’s attention back to him.

 

The Were looks awful. Most of his visible skin is littered with half-healed scar tissue and wounds. Stiles is sure that there is more of it underneath his clothes - if anything, Stiles knows the look intimately - but it seems Peter didn’t even try to hide them. Or doesn’t have the energy to. His usually impeccable appearance is no longer there. Instead, he wears worn attire and an even more worn expression on his face, that doesn’t quite disappear under the look of anger. But what perhaps is the most ominous looking about him, is the fact that his wounds don’t heal and fade by the second as Stiles looks at them.

 

 _They are inflicted by an alpha_ , Stiles realizes and his eye widens.

 

“You have found yourself in a bit of trouble, Stiles,” the beta says almost kindly.

 

Almost.

 

***

 

Peter pushes him inside of The Room. He talks, but parts of his monologue are lost to Stiles, who tries not to succumb to a second panic attack in the span of 24 hours. The feeling of dread rises inside of his chest, pushes at his lungs, and makes catching his breath harder than before. Stiles fears that their alpha will join them soon and do what he failed to do last night. He won’t survive it, that much is sure. Not when the mere trip to the place took almost all he had.

 

But the Werewolf doesn’t put him in the chair. Instead, he makes him sit on a bench while he himself flips through cabinets to look for something.

 

“You see, Stiles, I like them with some character,” he says, still turned away from the slave, but the use of his name catches Stiles’s attention again. “Something that can be snapped and reshaped more to my liking. I’m sure you know what I mean,” he offhandedly remarks.

 

Yes, Stiles does. He’s been _reshaped_ many times before.

 

“But Derek— Let’s just say he isn’t fond of your kind in any form. Character or not.” He sighs and turns back, talking directly to Stiles. “It took me a lot of work to get you here. A lot of effort and time. And it’s starting to look like you weren’t worth any of it. That’s not a good thing to think about one’s possession, is it, Stiles?” He looks pointedly at the human.

 

Stiles sits stiffly and looks at his hands. He doesn’t know what to say. He didn’t _try_ to be worthless. He didn’t _want_ to cause trouble. But Weres wouldn’t understand any of that. Wouldn’t try to acknowledge a fault in the situation, in themselves, when there was a convenient target nearby to take the blame. He took the brunt of their anger before, and more times than not he wasn’t even at fault. Why was he always surprised when this happened?

 

Stiles swallows. “No, beta,” he croaks.

 

“No. You’re quite right, Stiles,” he agrees, nodding. He looks almost mournful. “Do you perhaps propose a solution to our shared problem? Any solution?”

 

“I-” Stiles doesn’t know what to say. What to do to make this situation better. He no longer feels detached from his fate. Instead, there is deep sadness overtaking every fiber of his being. He’s useless and what purpose does his life have, if he even can’t serve to his master’s expectations?

 

He looks at Peter, feeling lost and exposed. The Werewolf doesn’t offer any help, just stares at Stiles, judging him from afar. Stiles looks away from the intrusive gaze.

 

Peter drums his fingers against a glass-case. He then steps to Stiles’s side and grabs with his clawed hand the human face, guiding it to face him. “Let me rephrase that. Will you or will you not be of use to us yet, Stiles?”

 

His claws dig into Stiles’s chin, when he asks the question, and it hurts. But it’s a stimuli Stiles needs to give a prompt answer.

 

“I will. I will try to be-”

 

Peter shakes his head. “That’s not enough. I don’t need you to try. _Derek_ certainly doesn’t need you to try. We want you to _be,_ Stiles,” he explains good-heartedly, but his tone changes in a second when he continues, “After all, wasting all those resources and time on something useless would make us very mad. Who knows just how. Maybe so mad that only erasing our shared disappointment from existence, piece by piece, would lessen the anger.”

 

His hand closes more tightly around Stiles’s face and he draws blood. He takes in the smell with closed eyes, like its aroma is pleasing to him. But the smell of it also makes him let go and step away.

 

“You will not repeat the stunt from yesterday ever again,” Peter announces, and all Stiles can do is to nod, even before the man finishes taking. Even if he has no idea what he did and how to stop it.

 

“No,” Stiles agrees quickly.

 

“Whatever we tell you to do, you will do it with a smile on your face and a thank you for letting you to be of use to your betters.”

 

He lets Stiles know his place. Luckily, Stiles knows exactly where it was, is, and always will be. He bows his head in agreement again, not trusting his voice.

 

“You will come willingly to this room and you will do anything in your power to make my nephew a stronger alpha. Even if it kills you,” Peter sneers and his presence seems to corner Stiles, even though he doesn’t move an inch. His presence looms over Stiles like a shadow, creeping into his thoughts and whispering promises of what’s to come.

 

This time all Stiles can manage is a broken whimper.

 

Peter claps his hands suddenly and the noise makes Stiles jump. “Well then!” he says cheerfully. “It seems all things are in order. It’s good to have things out in the open, don’t you agree, Stiles? Communication is such an important skill, and yet it’s so often unappreciated. It’s unbelievable.” He shakes his head and murmurs something else Stiles can’t hear, over the frantic beat of his own heart.

 

The silence that falls after is tense. He breathes, but the air rises inside of his throat and chokes him. All he wants to do is to crawl back to his room and never face the disappointment and the expectations ever again. He looks to Peter for a clue if he can go back, but the Were doesn’t give any. He stands in the exact same place and watches Stiles squirm and look anywhere but at him. The awkwardness doesn’t faze the beta one bit. He likes to make people uncomfortable, that much is clear.

 

Peter waits before Stiles can’t sit still any more wanting to get away before he adds, “Oh, silly me. I almost forgot your punishment.”

 

Stiles’s gaze snaps back to him in an instant.

 

“You didn’t think you could get away with directly opposing a command, did you?” he asks, faking surprise.

 

No, Stiles didn’t, but he was expecting something later on. Maybe for Isaac to deliver it too, since it was him that Stiles crossed. Usually his owners would retaliate as soon as as his behavior was spotted. But some others preferred to craft long and excruciating sets of tasks to put him back in line. Stiles always assumed Peter would be the second kind.

 

Stiles looks at his entwined hands and waits for Peter to tell him how he wants him. From the corner of his eye, he sees Peter go back to the shelves, clearly looking for something again. He doesn’t want to know what it is that he takes. And so when Peter finally finds it and moves back he concentrates on his hands and not noticing.

 

A sharp sound of snapping metal lock and cold weight around his throat surprises him. He looks to Peter at the same time as his hand goes to his neck and traces the shape of a slave’s collar.

 

Just from touching, he knows the collar is one of the most fancy ones - with programs and moods and other things no one has use for - but if Peter thinks this is a punishment he'll be sorely mistaken. It might be strange to some, but Stiles welcomes it. With it around his neck, it feels like some weight was taken off his chest and he can breathe again. The collar means he belongs. The collar means that he’s here to stay. It's as familiar as it is comforting. It feels like coming home.

 

Peter meets his expression of awe with a grimace. He dangles a remote - _the_ remote - in front of Stiles’s face, and before Stiles knows it, he slips from the bench and the floor rushes to meet him, as an electrical current makes his muscles lock and spasm. Agony fills him. It feels like every nerve is exposed and twisted, like every cell of his body is slowly, ever so slowly, getting annihilated. It feels like fire suddenly set inside of his lungs and mind, and he can’t think and breathe alike. It feels like dying, but also like death can’t come soon enough.

 

The Were shocks him into obedience, even though obedience is everything Stiles knows.

 

Peter stops after what feels like hours, but can’t be more than a few seconds. The blurry image of him looms over Stiles prone body, and he shuts his eye, unable to witness the expression on the man’s face. Stiles is quite sure he didn’t break the rules and scream. Still, his throat is so dry and achy he might have as well. He doesn’t even try to move, he wouldn’t be able to even if he needed. He breathes heavily, wondering if it's over for now. After a while, he overcomes his fear and looks to Peter trying to guess if that was it, if he paid his due, but not daring to move on the of the chance that he’s not.

 

Peter doesn’t seem more satisfied than he did before. If anything he looks more absentminded. He watches the residual effects on Stiles’s body, muscles jumping and spasming on their own accord, and he frowns. “Huh, it works. Who knew,” he comments.

 

Stiles closes his eyes once more and presses his face into the cold of the floor. Everything hurts, he feels like he’s being turned inside out, with pieces missing.

 

“You may go now,” Peter finally says when Stiles doesn’t try to get away.

 

Stiles watches him trying to find a trace of deception. He doesn’t find any. Still it takes him more than a minute before he is able to pick himself up from the floor. It takes another to be able to use his legs in a manner that won’t end in crashing down. Everything hurts, some of his old wounds flare with new pain. But for now, he’s alive and that’s all that matters.

 

“A word of advice, Stiles,” Peter says as Stiles is about to exit The Room, and the human stills. “Next time you want something, you ask for it politely.”

 

Stiles whips his head back to him, his eye wide and his heart pounding. He couldn’t have known. There was no chance that he—

 

Peter smiled at him, his expression full of condescension. “You’re not nearly as stealthy and cunning as you seem to think you are. And now you made it known, that there is much more under this meek slave mask you wear daily. That will make your life so much more _exciting_. I noticed it the first time we met. Derek noticed it when you decided to take a trip outside without being allowed to,” he informs Stiles.

 

He couldn’t be right. The alpha knew? The whole world seems to fade away, narrowing only to Peter and his words. Stiles looks at him, his lips half parted, ready to tell the lie. To tell him that he doesn’t know what the Were means. That the alpha is wrong and Stiles in no way contributed to the reason why he was put into the chair, didn’t oppose, didn’t do anything wrong. But he doesn’t. The lie dies on his lips unspoken as he looks at Peter and tries to think through the frenzy that overtook his mind.

 

“Tread carefully now,” Peter continues watching him closely. He seems to have noticed Stiles’s perplexity. “I’m done protecting you. You’re simply not worth it.”

 

Stiles keeps himself still, but the toes in his shoes curl inwards in a nervous tic, unseen by anyone. He breathes out slowly and looks down.

 

He tenses even more when the beta nears him and starts to arrange the collar on Stiles’s neck. “It won’t allow you to go more than 20 ft from the house. I won’t try to see what happens if you do,” he recommends.

 

“And Stiles?” One moment Stiles is standing and the next he’s on the floor, writhing as the electrical current sets every nerve in his body on fire once more. “Do not test my patience again,” Peter says pushing the button of the remote again, ending Stiles’s suffering.

 

This time he doesn’t wait for Stiles to gather himself again. He reaches down and pulls him to his feet by force, dusting Stiles’s worn clothes and the new hoodie with a mocking smirk .

 

Stiles doesn’t say anything. He lets himself be handled with no sign or a word of protest.

 

“Don’t look so sad,” Peter tells him. “It’s what you are, what you’re made for. It’s not a shameful thing to be of use to a greater cause.” He pushes gently a strand of hair from Stiles’s forehead. The slave raised his head and looks into the Were’s eyes. “And we both know you served this family a _long_ time before I got you out. If you behave from now on, I promise not to tell Derek just how well it went when it was Laura in his place instead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And we will end here for now, because I know just how much you guys like cliffhangers~!
> 
> Update: You guys might want to know I'm taking a little break from this story just to deal with _Stuff ™_ \- mainly to figure out how I want 'It' to look like in the long run. I promise to think through your feedback, though I don't guarantee what will be the result. Hopefully I will be back soon. See you then!


	8. Chapter 8

It’s been two days and Stiles hasn’t seen anyone in that time.

 

No one comes and no one assures Stiles that they remember he exists. There is no alpha, red eyes full of blood thirst, demanding his life for the crimes he committed. There is no beta, eyes blue as ice, to come and set it all into motion. There is no omega, with green eyes in which pity and anger mixed with sorrow for himself, to try and fix it all. There is no one.

 

It’s like he is already forgotten. Another ghost in a house full of shadows, with a tale that no one would listen to. The silence rings in his ears, screams at him to do something, anything, to break it. But there is nothing he can do now, is there?

 

It’s only been two days, but it could as well have been two years. Stiles feels like he’s going insane waiting for the other shoe to drop.

 

He can’t sleep.

 

Dreams slip away from him half-formed, but when he does manage to grasp them they are full of terror.

 

He’s exhausted. It isn't just physical, it’s the mental weight that almost crushes him. There is nothing in his room that he can do, and so he does the bare minimum each day. And yet when the evening comes, he lies on the bed exhausted and hopes to slip into unconsciousness. To escape the house and its inhabitants for a while. But he can’t. He dozes off and sees glowing red eyes following him and clawed hands hurting him, taking him, killing him. He hears voices screaming his but not-his name as a fire consumes the sound, and his whole world along with it. He awakens every time with a muffled scream and half-formed apology on his lips, before he notices no one around and his brain finally shuts down the alarm sound, that sets his every thought ablaze. When it does, he rolls on to his side and with a tired gaze catches still mostly dark cloudless sky. Sleep doesn’t come after.

 

He then gets up from the bed and continues what he did each day. He makes his little room look so good, that when the Were will come -  _ and they will, they will, they will, they had to, he isn’t going to die forgotten here, they will _ \- there would be nothing they could find wrong. Stiles is grateful to be in Hale’s possession. He is. And he’s grateful for everything he was given so far and he will show it. It won’t end like with other owners. With him taking a  step out of the line and them deciding he’s no longer worth the trouble. It won’t be that way.

 

It couldn’t be.

 

He can’t eat.

 

He no longer feels hunger. He knows he needs to eat and drink and he tries to, but when he takes the meal replacements Peter gave him before parting, they turn to ashes inside his mouth. He spits them out and they come covered with blood Stiles knows isn’t his. He tries to drink but the water tastes like smoke and he chokes on it, unable to keep it down. To eat and survive. It doesn’t work. He tries to do it again. And again. And again. But each time the effect is the same. Even if somehow he can swallow the food and water, it comes back a few minutes later in a bile that burns his throat and mouth with liquid fire. On the day number three, he stops trying.

 

He feels weak, he feels his heart pounding with every step he takes, his muscles cramp more than before. But he pushes the pain down. He makes himself move past his limitations and with each step, with each chore done, he feels better. He feels like the blood on his hands is less visible and taste of bodies burning disappears from the back of his tongue.

 

He can’t think.

 

The thought of what he did to the alpha is hanging over his head like a storm cloud, with lightning ready to strike him any moment. And the fact that he can’t do anything to make it better is... He needs to do something, maybe just talk to someone, explain that he didn’t mean to do it, that he didn’t wish for it. But at the same time, he prays no will even remember it ever happened. Especially not his alpha. It’s so much worse than it ever was before. Before he was only a spark in service of his alpha. And even if every time he was used killed a little part of him, he could take it, he was used to it. He could survive it. He did that before.

 

Stiles isn’t so sure he could do that now.

 

Now he is a spark in service of his alpha, who did him wrong. He assaulted him, made him go crazy, even if for a bit. But how bad was it? How long did it last? Those were the questions he didn’t have an answer to. And after doing so he also alienated the only two people who didn’t wish to see him dead before.

 

But at the same time, he can’t stop wondering.

 

In those darkest hours of the day, instead of sleeping, he wonders who Laura is.

 

Laura. The name haunts him.

 

He thinks about her, about who she is. Who she is to him. He doesn’t know much, doesn’t remember. All Stiles knows is that she’s somehow connected to the Hales. He remembers her the best when he thinks about Derek and Peter, of the way they look, their mannerisms, how it somehow feels familiar. Stiles thinks she might be the relative he met before. He’s almost certain of it. Almost, but not quite.

 

Laura. Stiles thinks he saw her in the alpha’s memories, but the image is hard for him to recall. She was young there, he thinks, so she couldn’t be a mother or an aunt. A cousin then? Peter’s child? No. Peter didn’t seem like the type to so carelessly mention his own daughter. Especially if what Stiles suspects happened to her was true. So a sister then? An alpha in waiting? But that didn’t explain how she would have contact with Stiles. How she was ‘in Derek’s place instead’. For that, she had to be an alpha and how could she when Derek was one?

 

Laura. After what happened in The Room, he can almost see her now, he can almost hear her voice. He almost knows where he met her and why the name itself fills him with dread and sadness alike. He clears his mind and reaches, trying to grab the frayed edges of his memories, but they slip away from him just before he manages to see them. They’re all mostly just bits and pieces, by now only connected to each other by Stiles’s sheer force of will.

 

Laura. Assuming what Peter said is true, Stiles only knows for sure that Laura, whoever she was, is one of the people that once was using his spark. And it ended badly. He also knows now that Derek didn’t know about it, and if the truth reached him somehow…

 

The truth about… What Stiles did to Laura… When Laura was in Derek’s place… How well it went.

 

_ I need to remember. I need to know what I did! _

 

But the more he tries, the farther the shreds of  memory go, being buried in shallow graves in his mind, in a place even he doesn’t have access to. But it’s there somewhere, he’s sure of it. Somewhere in his mind there has to be even one memory of her. And if Derek stumbles upon it the next time he plans to use Stiles, the game is over. Now every time Stiles is in The Room, he will not only worry about staying himself but also about not giving too much.

 

There was no way the situation could end well.

 

He huffs, frustrated with himself. If he  could just reach the memory he needed… If he  could just remember! There has to be something left. Something that could explain to him why the thought that Derek might see the memory frightens him like nothing before. Something. Anything.

 

Laura…

 

Damn it all to hell! If he could just recall what the alpha’s memories were. It all would be clear. He would know what he was facing. Not this: left helpless, not even knowing what he was scared off. Maybe Laura was no one. Maybe she was just someone Peter made up to make Stiles fear and obey him. Or maybe Stiles went mad one day and killed her without a second thought. Maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe his mind hasn’t been  his own for years now, and maybe the things that he thinks he remembers aren’t even true. Maybe it all, the Hunt, the Hales,  _ maybe _ it all is an illusion and he’s still in the Lab, part of another of their studies. How can he  _ know _ ? How can he notice the difference by now? They poked and probed him, twisting the very things he once thought were real into fairy tales and the fairy tales into daily horrors. How can he know what’s real? If the memories he’d seen are real. If the memories he  _ thinks _ he remembers are real. He isn’t a Were, he doesn't see other’s memories the way they do… The way they said they did.

 

Did they really see his memories like they said they did, or was it just another part of the sick game all of the Weres play with sparks like him?

 

Were there even other sparks out there…?

 

Stiles’s breath comes in rapid, shallow gasps, and it’s not due to his injured ribs. There isn’t enough air in the room and he needs to get away. He needs to  _ think _ . He staggers atop the stairs, every step threatening to make his climb into a fall, but somehow he manages it. Even weakened, he manages to motivate his body into a movement that could result in freedom. He grasps the handle in his hand and pushes it, needing to get away from the room if only for just a second. If only to breathe  air that doesn't smell like the inside of a grave.

 

And so Stiles pushes the handle. Only to find that the door was locked from the outside.

 

_ No. _

 

_ No, no, no, no, no. No. Please, no. _

 

He pushes it again. And again. And again and again. Nothing changes. The door remains closed and he remains a prisoner of the small room that now looks even smaller in his eyes. The walls close in on him. He needs to get away, he needs to breathe! He pounds on the door in sheer desperation and freezes.

 

He just made noise.

 

Stiles waits for any indication that the Weres were just right outside, waiting to have an excuse to punish him again. His heart hammers inside of his rib cage, wanting to break free like an exotic bird after years of forced captivity.

 

He waits. And then he hears it. Footsteps.

 

Stiles dashes down the stairs, his legs only just managing to follow the speed of his movement. He loses footing two steps before the stairs end and he crashes to the floor, landing hard on his left knee and forearm, shielding his right side from a nasty hit at the last minute. But even though he should feel pain, there is none, not even in his ribs or right leg. There is only dread filling his veins, making his every cell answer the need to get away from the door. Be away when it opens and whoever's wrath he deserved this time comes.

 

He huddles up in the corner of the room and waits for the handle of the door to move again, revealing the freedom he so desired only a moment ago. But what freedom was it? The freedom to be closer to the people that wanted him dead? That freedom? He looks around the room, the prison, he called it. And yet it is the closest thing to a home he has ever had. Or maybe the closest thing he remembers having. And he was so willing just now to throw it all away. For what, he was not sure.

 

Suddenly Stiles laughs. The window. He should have just tried the window. Even if it was closed shut too.

 

The laughter dies in his throat when the door opens.

 

But it’s not Derek or even Peter that stands inside of it. It’s Isaac.

 

“Do you need something?” he asks, standing atop of the stairs with no intention of going down. By the tone of his voice, Stiles knows he has yet to forget what happened when he last helped the slave. “Well?”

 

Stiles doesn’t answer.

 

Isaac waits for him to say something, but when that doesn’t happen his eyes narrow and nostrils flare. “You look like hell. Just like prey, huddled in the corner like this. And your heart. I think I’ve heard calmer rabbits trapped in a wolf’s jaw.”

 

Again Stiles is silent. He doesn’t know what he could possibly say to a statement like this.

 

“Do you need something?” Isaac repeats, this time his annoyance clear.

 

Stiles wants so bad to ask to be released from the room. From the silence that tries to kill him. But he shakes his head instead.

 

“Then stop being so damn noisy. You know what Derek will do to you if he were to find you like this, right?” he asks, and Stiles could be wrong, but he sees a bit of concern on Isaac’s face. But whatever he saw--or didn’t--it’s gone in the next second when Isaac remembers why they’re no longer on speaking terms. “Peter said he would get you once everything is settled. So… Just be quiet. And stay where you’re supposed to.”

 

He throws one last look at Stiles, looking like he wants to say more, but then he shakes his head and leaves the room without another word spoken.

 

No longer than a few seconds after the doors closed behind Isaac, Stiles runs to the bathroom and dry-heaves over the toilet.

 

_ What have I done…? _

 

The thing is Stiles isn’t stupid. In the end it doesn’t matter who Laura is. Or was. What he did was steal from an alpha. It was as simple as that. Even simpler - he did something bad to the alpha’s relative. Was anything else even worth obsessing about? He was a dead man walking as it was.

 

There is no doubt in his mind that the next time he sees the alpha he will regret the time Peter laid his eyes on him during The Hunt. Maybe the death in the forest was a far more merciful alternative to what waited for him now. Maybe it was also better than losing himself all over again and allowing the Weres to use him in this way. Allowing them to take and take and take and never stop until all that is him is finally gone.

 

But there is no point in wondering about that. Soon there will be nothing left of him.

 

And you can’t hurt something if there is nothing to be hurt.

 

When he feels a little better, he washes his face and mouth in the sink and wishes that the mirror wasn’t just there, waiting to mock him every time he entered the bathroom. There to tell him that with each day he looks even worse than before, even if now he has an actual owner.

 

He lies on the bed and waits fruitlessly for the sleep to come.

 

Stiles is saved from wondering about it more when day five comes -  _ was it day five already? _ \- and all of the stormy thoughts are chased away by a wall of fire that consumes his mind and body. The wounds on his back forget all the healing from before, and now are spilling yellow pus that smells of death. But he would be more worried about it not for the hot swelling that sets around his ribs and pulses with pain. Stiles no longer has the energy to move from his bed and he lies in it looking at the cloudless sky by  day and listening to the rain at night. His breath comes in tiny gasps and he wonders if this is it. If he will die in this tiny room, forgotten, long before the Weres have a chance to use him again, long before Derek has a chance to know about Laura and take his revenge for stealing from him.

 

In the delirium, the darkness and pain, he only wants one thing. Not to die alone. And if he must do so to be remembered. By someone. Anyone. Be it in annoyance for not meeting his purpose, if he must.

 

And so, when day number seven comes around and Peter steps down the stairs and extends his hand to Stiles to take him to The Room, Stiles is glad.

 

Because most of all Stiles wants it all to finally be over.

  
  


***

  
  


The whole way to The Room, Stiles leans heavily on Peter, who about halfway through the journey seems to realize that making disgusted noises at the state of the slave probably isn't the best use of his time. Stiles doesn’t mind it that much though. He is more concerned with concentrating on breathing and taking step after step, when the constant pounding of blood rushing through his veins makes it hard to hear his own thoughts, much less to pay attention to his surroundings long enough to take offense.

 

This time when Stiles enters The Room, the alpha is already waiting for him. His face is an emotionless mask, but Stiles sees a small flash in his eyes, a sudden jump of a muscle on his throat. It’s how Stiles knows that the previous session isn’t forgotten nor forgiven. Yet there are no traces of what happened here before. The room is tied up, there are no signs of the alpha’s fury and Stiles thinks Isaac must have done it.

 

He didn’t expect anything less from the alpha, but it still doesn’t stop his pulse from rising even higher. It’s now deafening to him and he thinks the rumble of it must be just as loud to the Weres.

 

Stiles tries to calm down. He looks to Peter for confirmation, wanting to know if it will be exactly like before, but all he sees is an unhappy set of the man’s mouth and a frown, and then the beta loses all expression from his face. He leads Stiles deeper into the room, his hands holding Stiles upright now tenser.

 

As Stiles goes to his chair he looks at everything but his alpha and he tries to think about anything other than the dread that now fills his very soul. When he sits, he sets his gaze firmly on the wall before him and doesn’t look at either of the Weres. He fears that if caught looking, he might provoke something worse than the fate already awaiting him. Something worse than death itself.

 

A small sound almost escapes his throat when Peter binds his chest, but he bites his lip hard, preventing it.

 

“Do you really think this is a good idea?” Peter murmurs, this time more gently securing Stiles.

 

The alpha doesn’t answer, but a second later the claws go once again into Stiles’s neck.

 

This time Stiles doesn’t have the energy to give more than a small whimper, which is quickly silenced by the gag.

 

The pull… It’s too strong. He is pulled into Derek’s mind so hard the air is knocked out of his lungs. It’s too strong, too deep.

 

_ It shouldn’t be like that- It  _ shou _ - _

 

Everything goes black.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So... Not dead if that's what you've been wondering. But not quite back either. There is a simple explanation to why I'm not so much around anymore. Sadly (for the writing part, not the money part) in the past year the thing I do for work finally took off and I have so little free time it would be comical if it wasn't so exhausting. And so this leaves me with little to no time to write. But I want all of you to know that I'm motivated to finish this story even if it might take me a while longer than I originally thought.
> 
> The other thing why this story didn't progress for so long is this chapter. To say the least, I'm not satisfied with it. But I haven't been satisfied with it for the past year, no matter how many times I edited it and rewritten it from scratch, so you know. Probably it's about the time I forgive it for sucking and go on with this story. It had to be done and let us leave it at that. The next chapter will be more exciting, the setting of this story is almost done (thank God), and so some action will finally show itself.
> 
> This chapter is not beta-ed, so all the mistakes are my own and I'm truly ashamed of their creation. If anyone is willing to become my beta please leave me a message.
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading (if anyone is still willing to read it) and hope to see you guys in the next chapter.
> 
> EDIT: The chapter as all the other were betaed by the lovely http://let-me-wander.tumblr.com who continues to be the true hero of this story!

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Hated it? Come and tell me on [tumblr](http://freyafenris.tumblr.com/).


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